


Rendezvous Series

by brocanteur



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Enemies to Lovers, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:15:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 75
Words: 71,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brocanteur/pseuds/brocanteur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moriarty has escaped from prison, and through a series of encounters, makes her interest in Joan Watson known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Gramercy Knot

“She’s out.”

Joan stopped just as she’d begun tightening the loop on her shoelaces, the knot coming undone beneath her fingertips at the urgency in Sherlock’s voice. She looked up, saw the hard set of his jaw, the grimness on his face, and knew.

After another breath, she bent over again and finished tying her shoes.

“How?” she asked, standing up, stretching her arms over her head, twisting to one side, then the other, already thinking she would make this an extra long run. Tension was building in her shoulders, the back of her neck. Maybe after a hard run, she would be too exhausted to care.

“They were short on details, but it’s safe to say she had help on the inside. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long.”

“Are you kidding? She was in federal lock-up, Sherlock. What she managed was—”

“Yes,” he interrupted, a glimmer of reluctant admiration in his eyes. “Extraordinary.”

“I wasn’t going to use that word,” Joan said. She was irritated; annoyed; angry; scared, maybe. A little scared. She grabbed her house key and pinned it to the inside of her shorts. “I’ll be back later.”

“You’re going out?”

“No, Sherlock, I’m dressed up to run around the house. Your powers of deduction are slipping.”

He cocked his head at her petulant tone and, if she hadn’t known better, she could have sworn he was about to stick his tongue out at her.

“Why?” she asked, before he could say what was on his mind. “Should I be worried?”

He lifted his arm as he squinted, his fingers tapping air, leading him into the next word. “Cautious, I would say. No harm in being cautious, is there, Watson?”

“You think she wants to kill me?”

He gave her an exaggerated frown as his squint deepened, his brow furrowed in thought.

“She is… unpredictable, is she not? If I had been able to solve her in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this position, so perhaps my opinion on the matter is less valuable than it would be under different circumstances.”

“You’re saying you don’t know.”

“I’m saying your guess is as good as mine. And, beyond that, I would say that, were I you, I would be—”

“Cautious,” Joan finished. “Got it. Thanks.”

He gave her a look that told her he was going to—thankfully—glide right past her curtness.

“Will you be back soon, then?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and the pitch of his voice in surprising tentativeness.

“No. I’m going out to Gramercy Park. Alfredo’s installing a security system in the area and I’m meeting him for coffee. I thought it’d be a nice change of pace, but now that I know I might have an evil criminal mastermind plotting revenge on me, getting out of Brooklyn for the afternoon sounds even better.”

“Ha,” Sherlock said, not laughing, not actually, but acknowledging, at least, the preposterous nature of their conversation. “I feel, oddly, as though I ought to apologize. Though I shouldn’t, should I?”

“No,” Joan agreed. “You shouldn’t. I’m not upset with you; I’m upset that I don’t really know how to react to the news. Like, do we need a police detail now? Is my family safe?”

Sherlock pursed his lips.

“To be fair,” he said, “if vengeance were her sole motivation– Well, it’s evident she could have planned and executed any number of things from prison. An empire as large as hers does not dissolve overnight.”

“Great,” Joan said, turning towards the door. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Give Alfredo my regards.”

—

She ran four miles, the last half mile of which she flat out sprinted. Her lungs were burning when she passed the Flatiron Building. By the time she rounded the corner from Twentieth to Park Avenue, she was spent. Leaning back against the wrought iron that surrounded Gramercy Park, she stared up at the sky and breathed. Her mind was blissfully blank. Birds passed overhead, the sun shined brightly—New York in the spring.

After glancing at her phone and noting she still had thirty minutes before she had to meet Alfredo, she plopped down on a nearby bench and did nothing but watch passersby.

Her peace broke five minutes later.

At first, she didn’t think anything of the person sitting on the far side of the bench. She was checking her email when she felt a prickling at the back of her neck, the sensation that comes from being stared at.

She looked to her left.

The woman sat with her leg crossed over her knee, her right arm stretched out along the back of the bench. Her head was tilted a few degrees. She was smiling.

Joan fumbled her phone.

Moriarty tut-tutted.

Before Joan could even slide-to-unlock, a massive man in a suit plucked her phone out of her hands.

She was startled; her heart was racing, faster even than on that last stretch of her run, but she was trying hard not to show it.

“Leave us,” Moriarty told her man. He disappeared down the block; Joan watched him go and stand, like a stone statue, next to a black sedan.

When she glanced back at Moriarty, she was still smiling, the corner of her mouth curled into something smug. She didn’t look like someone on the run. She was dressed in a leather jacket, tight black pants, boots; her hair was loose. There was nothing harried about her demeanor. Nothing threatening, even—except she sat deliberately so that her jacket fanned enough that Joan could see a pistol sticking out of her waistband.

“Still not frightened, then?”

What was Moriarty after with that question? Did she want the answer to be yes? Joan instead answered, “Your break-out was impressive.”

“Was it? Did Sherlock think so?”

“I don’t speak for Sherlock.”

“Nor should you.” Moriarty moved closer, sliding along the bench until she was right beside Joan, nearly thigh-to-thigh. Whatever her intentions, the proximity now seemed risky. Maybe because there were people everywhere, running by, or just within the park’s gates, Joan had felt oddly safe. When she now looked back at Moriarty, however, she recognized the danger she presented, the menace.

“Don’t run away now, Watson. We’ve only begun our tête-à-tête.”


	2. Himitsu-Bako

“What are you doing here? Are you going to—”

Frowning, Moriarty interrupted, “Oh, what? Hurt you? Of course not.”

 _Out of the mouth of a liar_ , thought Joan, though she believed Moriarty. For some insane reason, she believed her. Sherlock was right—if she had wanted to hurt either of them, she probably could have accomplished that from the comfort of her isolated prison cell. Considering the logistics of her escape, it was now apparent she had gotten away with a lot more than a simple communiqué to any one of her goons, which was all it would have taken, after all, to order a hit.

“Then what?”

“Why, this is merely a splendid coincidence, Watson. Here you are, taking exercise. And here I am, taking in the view. It’s lovely out.”

Moriarty’s gaze was fixed intently on Joan. It was an unsettling kind of flirtation, and if Joan hadn’t been equal parts irritated and terrified, she might have called Moriarty out on it.

Instead, she said, “Right,” her tone mordant even while she schooled her face into a mildness she wasn’t feeling. And, ”I want my phone back.”

“In due time.” Moriarty smiled again, leaned her head onto her hand in a pose that made her look girlishly pretty. That, and the response, annoyed Joan even more. “You’re looking well.”

“Small talk? No. I’m not making small talk with you.”

“Small talk is for the bored and the insipid. We are neither of those things, are we, Joan Watson? No, I merely came to say good-bye.”

“What happened to splendid coincidence?”

Moriarty’s smile broadened so that she was showing teeth, but she had no riposte. Instead she reached out without warning, brushing her fingers through Joan’s hair so suddenly Joan was stunned into inaction.

“I think I shall paint you.”

“I’m not interested in your games—and I’m especially not interested in _this_ game—so if you’ve got something worthwhile on your agenda, you’d better spill it now, or I’ll leave and you can keep my phone.”

Not really. Joan wasn’t about to give Moriarty that kind of informational access, not so willingly—but the tactic worked. Moriarty leaned back, her face neutral. She might have been about to say something, but Joan didn’t have a chance to find out, because in that moment a pleasantly-surprised Alfredo walked up to their bench.

“Yo, Joan,” he said. “I was just on my way to meet you.” He glanced at Moriarty, smiled at her, but didn’t say anything immediately. He was probably expecting an introduction.

“So was I actually. Sorry, Alfredo—I just got held up.”

“Oh, sure, I’d forget the time, too, if I was having a conversation with your friend, here.” Smooth, Joan thought. Seeing as Joan wasn’t providing an invitation, Alfredo made his own, holding his hand out to Moriarty. “Hello.”

“Hello, Mr. Llamosa.” Moriarty smiled coquettishly, pleased, Joan was sure, by Alfredo’s muted shock. “Don’t be alarmed. It’s just that Joan’s told me all about you.”

It took Alfredo a couple of seconds to recover, but he did so cheerfully. “Yeah? I’m sorry to say I can’t say the same, Miss—?”

“Call me Irene. Yes, Joan does carry on,” Moriarty continued, sliding over so she could put an arm around Joan’s shoulder, squeezing when Joan stiffened noticeably. “I mean, she’s lovely, isn’t she?”

“No doubt, Irene. No doubt, but, hey, listen—I don’t want to interrupt your conversation, or anything. If you want I can meet you at the café, Joan…?”

“There’s no need,” Moriarty responded, as though the question had been directed at her. “Joan and I had, sadly, reached the end of our conversation. Now, Alfredo— May I be so familiar?”

“Um, sure.”

“You are Sherlock’s sponsor, are you not?”

The question brought on instant discomfort; Joan watched Alfredo fidget with his watch. He glanced at her, then back at Moriarty.

“That’s not really something I’m free to discuss.”

“Oh, please, don’t think Joan’s been indiscreet. I’ve a relationship with Sherlock as well. He speaks quite highly of you.”

Alfredo’s shoulders dropped with relief; he smiled. “Glad to hear it.”

“Yes, of course. Also, may I say, you are incredibly talented. If it weren’t so obvious you now work on the side of angels, I wouldn’t hesitate to recruit you for my own organization.”

“For your—”

Moriarty didn’t elaborate, or let him continue with the question he no doubt wanted to ask. In that moment, she stood up from the bench, looked down at Joan.

“I’m sorry our meeting was so brief.”

“I’m not.”

Another smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Until next time, Watson.”

Then, she bent down and gave Joan a kiss on each cheek, lingering on the second, tickling the side of Joan’s face with her hair. Joan’s instant, stupid thought was, _She smells good_. Followed by, _No. Evil._

Before long, Moriarty had disappeared into her car and her bodyguard/driver was pressing Joan’s phone back into her hands.

Alfredo stared at the car, then looked back at Joan expectantly. “Who was _that_?”

Joan sighed.

“You really don’t want to know.”

—–

When Joan told Sherlock about Moriarty’s appearance, he took it about as well as he could have.

“Well. She came to you. How very interesting.”

“Interesting? I wouldn’t say that. She’s just playing one of her games, which is— Pretty ballsy, considering the feds are hot on her trail.”

“She _is_ clever, but she also enjoys her games, so who’s to say what she’ll do. It does seem you’ve piqued her interest.”

“Great.”

His eyebrows dipped with concern.

“You’ll be fine, you know? I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“Yes. Nevertheless, I still mean it. Moriarty’s my problem, not yours.”

“Well,” Joan said, sipping her tea, “it seems she’s our problem now.”

Sherlock glowered, but said nothing.

They drank the rest of their tea in silence.

–

The phone rang at two in the morning.

“I’m in Ibiza.”

That voice. Joan ran her hand through her hair, bit back a curse, held in her surprise, the sudden onrush of fear: “Oh?”

“Weren’t you curious?”

“No. Why did you call?”

“I’ve left you a gift. Have you got a pen?”

Joan wasn’t sure what this would get her, but it’d been two weeks since their meeting in the park, and she hadn’t been able to get her mind off of Moriarty. Still groggy and in a near dream state, she was suddenly afraid she’d willed the phone call into being.

Fumbling, she found a pen and a scrap of paper on her nightstand.

“Go on.”

Moriarty gave her an address and promptly hung up. When Joan reached the location the next morning, she found herself in an antiques shop in Alphabet City. It looked like it was closed, but there was a doorbell and so she took a chance and rang.

After a few minutes, an avuncular old man with a bit of a hunchback opened the door and let her in.

“Ms. Watson? Ms. Adler said you’d come first thing. This is for you.”

The box was ornate wood.

Before Joan could ask, the man said, “A Japanese puzzle box. There’s a note, too.”

Joan took the envelope he held out, ripped it open, pulled out the note. Soft, feminine script on perfumed paper. Joan rolled her eyes. It read:

_Open it and come find me._


	3. 34.9211° S, 57.9544° W

Crime scene photographs. Reports. Eyewitness interviews. A list of physical evidence: DNA, blood splatter analysis, fingerprints recovered. As they sat on the floor of the brownstone’s living room, Sherlock and Joan pored over everything. They spent hours arguing the logistics of the case. Had the man’s widow hired a hitman? What did she have to gain from his demise? A paltry insurance payout, after the payment of which she would be left with a mortgage, credit card debt…

So, the wife, Charlene Starkey, seemed an unlikely suspect.

Joan was tired. She found herself drifting from the conversation. Thought about dinner; that email she’d gotten from Oren regarding their mother’s upcoming birthday, and what to do about it; that pair of shoes she’d seen at Barney’s; the last book she’d read for pleasure; Moriarty.

That her thoughts drifted and lingered there, of all places—on that woman–bothered her. Not because she had no business thinking of Moriarty. There was, after all, an unfinished game between them, a game Joan hadn’t even asked to play, but in which she was now involved. A game she was loath to admit intrigued her. Not just the game, but the implications of it. Why was Moriarty suddenly so interested in her? Why, when Sherlock was her obvious target? Then again, the woman was a law unto herself. Who could ever really guess at her motivations?

( _I did, once,_ Joan thought.)

“Are you listening, Watson?”

“Hm? Yes. Of course.”

“Really? Then what—”

“Charlene Starkey’s alibi is rock solid. I know.”

“Fine. Let’s discuss the brother, then. A history of violence, cocaine habit…”

Just then, Moriarty intruded again. The box, Moriarty’s puzzle, lay open by Joan’s bed. It had taken three days for Joan to unlock it, and when she finally had, she’d felt an intense delight, the kind she only felt when cracking cases with Sherlock. The difference, the problem, was that the pleasure she’d gotten from Moriarty’s puzzle was that Moriarty had chosen it. It was Moriarty who was intrinsic to the puzzle, intrinsic to Joan’s pleasure at having solved it.

Inside the box: coordinates.

Sherlock waved a particularly gruesome picture of Marvin Starkey’s body—lying in the kitchen of the Park Slope apartment he shared with his wife and three children—in Joan’s face.

“If you’re listening,” Sherlock’s gaze bored into her, “why are you miles away? Has it, perhaps, something to do with the Himitso-Bako in your room?”

“How did you—? Sherlock.”

“I didn’t rifle through your things. It’s been in your room for weeks and you’ve never once bothered to hide it. You, in fact, wanted me to see it.”

“Sherlock, the _entirety_ of my room is private.”

“Nevertheless,” he replied, staring at her, waiting.

Joan crossed her arms, heaved a sigh. Looked away.

“So, what?” she asked, glancing back at him, her anger down to a low simmer as she recognized, internally, that he’d had every right to know; that she had no good reason to keep it from him. None, except it was exciting to have a secret, a puzzle she could solve herself.

After a moment’s hesitation, she continued, “You opened it; you saw the coordinates. You probably committed them to memory. Right?”

Sherlock, unmoved by her tepid indignation, said, “When were you going to tell me?“

"Soon.”

“When? After you’d met with her? After she began calling, leaving messages? You didn’t think this concerned me?”

“Of course I did. The rest of it is nonsense. She called me _once_ , Sherlock, and she left the box. That was all. The coordinates— I don’t even know what to do with them. It’s a stupid game that you’re taking way too seriously. You know what she is, what she does. She’s just entertaining herself with ‘the mascot.’”

Sherlock cringed, his affront fading as he scratched his three days’ beard. “You know full well what she’s capable of doing.”

“Like you said, if she wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”

Sherlock’s jaw tightened. “Quite so.”

“I just— I need time.”

“Time?”

 _To know her_ , Joan thought. Although the notion arrived spontaneously, it only took a few seconds for it to sink in, and when it did, it frightened her. Saying it any other way seemed false. Solving puzzles, winning games–those were the purviews of Sherlock and Moriarty. Joan only wanted to _know_. But she couldn’t say it, not about Moriarty; Sherlock would misunderstand.

Instead, she put it in terms he would appreciate:

“To solve her again.”


	4. La Plata

It was midnight. Joan was in bed, awake and reading, when her phone began to vibrate. She glanced at the screen. It read: Caller Unknown. It buzzed three more times before she decided to answer with a quick swipe of her thumb.

“Surely you’ve opened it by now?”

Moriarty’s voice was like whisky—warm and smooth and low. Joan imagined her lying in a hammock in some exotic locale, nursing a drink, a plan. As the picture resolved itself, Joan silently berated herself for making it so pretty, so enticing.

And Joan didn’t need to ask what Moriarty was referring to. She’d been thinking of the Himitsu-Bako’s contents for days.

“I have.”

“Yet I’m still waiting.”

Joan frowned at her book, dog-eared the page she was reading, and glanced at the door. A stupid maneuver, because the door was closed and Sherlock was downstairs, working; and yet her first instinct was to hide. Instantly, she felt disloyal, and in the time it took her to respond to Moriarty’s statement, Joan considered going downstairs to inform him she was making contact again.

She did not move.

She said, “Waiting for what? An Interpol Red Notice?”

Moriarty laughed pleasantly enough. It carried through thousands of miles and a spotty cellular connection—and still Joan felt it like a soft breath against her ear.

“Why, for you of course.”

It was Joan’s turn to laugh. Hers was hard and disbelieving as she sank beneath her blanket and switched off the lamp on her nightstand. She lowered her voice, remembering Sherlock.

“You didn’t think I’d go to Argentina.”

“You have surprised me before. I thought surely the opportunity to do so again would be tempting. There’s something thrilling about proving someone wrong, isn’t there? I assure you, it wouldn’t be boring.”

“Right.” Not that Joan wasn’t wondering what it was Moriarty was doing in Argentina. Her business interests were so diverse; so evil. Thinking of all the philosophy classes she’d taken in college—a waste of time, as far as degree advancement went, but she’d enjoyed them immeasurably—she asked, “Do you know Kierkegaard?”

The question threw Moriarty off for a moment. Her answer was tentative: “Some.”

“Yeah, me too. I read him In college, mostly, but I do remember being interested in ‘Either/Or,’ and in the idea that boredom is the root of all evil. What do you think?

“You wish to conduct a philosophical discussion on evil with me?” Jamie asked blithely. “I’ll say there’s an undeniable truth to that, but only insofar as you believe in absolutes such as ‘truth’ and ‘evil.’”

“Are you bored?”

“Are you calling me evil?”

“Yes,” Joan replied flatly.

Jamie laughed again.

She said, “Let me put it this way, Watson: I’ve looked into the void. Freedom is bleak if there’s nothing to desire.”

“And what do you desire, now? Not power. Not money. Even you would concede that those pursuits are beneath you.”

“How generous you are.”

“I’m saying you’ve got them. You can’t want what you already have.”

“And that makes me bored? In your estimation, wasn’t I bored long before I set upon being what I am?”

“And what is that?”

“A criminal mastermind,” there was laughter in Moriarty’s voice as she spoke, “is what I believe Sherlock would say. So is that why my coordinates didn’t entice you? Because I’m evil and blah blah blah. You’re right. I am rather bored, so perhaps you can enlighten me. How is it that you keep occupied in the banalities of life? By solving murder mysteries? You deride my games, but you play them, too, Watson.” Moriarty sighed loudly, for effect, as she continued, “It is a shame. You would’ve enjoyed yourself. Buenos Aires is beautiful.”

“Why are you trying so hard? Obviously it isn’t me you want,” Joan said. “If you think I’ll let you use me to get to him, you’re wrong. I allow these conversations—”

“Oh, allow.”

“I talk to you because you’re a fugitive, a case, and my interest in you doesn’t extend beyond that. In fact, I’m a little surprised you’re willing to play these games with me, considering how easy it was for me to hand you your ass last time.”

A brief pause. Another sigh, but quiet. Personal.

“Yes, you had your small victory, didn’t you? And yet, what’s changed? Nothing, really, except I’ll never underestimate you again. And you interest me very much, Joan Watson. To tell you the truth, I don’t quite mind being your case, not so long as it means you’ll allow me to have a poke at your mind.”

It must have been the tone of it—the familiarity with which Moriarty said her name, the way in which interest slid off of her tongue—that angered Joan. She said, “I know what you want—”

“What you know about me and my desires wouldn’t fill a thimble, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind sharing a thing here and there. That’s the beauty of this enterprise. I fully admit I find you fascinating, and I think you feel the same. If I’m a fugitive, if I am your case, then I dare you to come and find me, my dear Watson.”


	5. Une Odalisque

April. Seventy-five degrees. The heavens blue, incandescent.

Central Park teemed with fresh life. Bird-watchers kept their binoculars to the sky, stood and listened for songs they recognized, carefully tracked whatever they heard or saw in their notebooks. Young children ran ahead of their fatigued parents, screaming and laughing. Couples sunned themselves, read books, squinted at the cloudless sky.

Joan ran past them—past lush, green elm; flowering dogwood, a burst of white in her periphery. Past purple crocuses, eggy daffodils, weeping snowdrops, the orange-vermillion tangle of witch-hazel in bloom. When she inhaled, she breathed in the sharp, clear smell of damp grass, flowers, tree bark, and the cling of concrete, car exhaust—the city.

A few days earlier, her mother had called to tell her she was clearing out a storage unit Joan hadn’t even known she kept. “I found a few of your things. Come and get them or they’ll go in the garbage.” And so, after sifting through boxes labeled “Joanie,” but finding little of value—old essays, water-logged paperbacks, track medals—she saw, lost in the clutter, the tape, and a letter from a girl she hadn’t thought about in years. She read the letter and tried to conjure up a face, came up fuzzy, and almost cried at how easy it had been to forget someone she’d once loved, at the insubstantial chemistry of memories.

That morning, while the city was still rubbing dawn out of its eyes, Joan transferred the songs to her phone under the playlist “Roxanne.” She’d already run through Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees… Arms and legs moved in synchrony, finding an automatic cadence, as Joan thought of Roxy, of how they’d connected hard and separated painfully before their senior year at Townsend Harris. It had been a scarring blow and now, as she remembered, the old sensation came back, a dull ache.

It was what she was thinking about as a figure seated on a nearby bench waved for her attention. And Joan, who nearly stumbled as she fought inertia, couldn’t contain her surprise; dismay; pleasure.

“I’ll have you know,” Moriarty said as Joan stopped and took a few, wary steps towards her, hands on hips, winded, “I waited two weeks for you in La Plata. Alas, business called and so I had to set aside our—” She stopped. A conspiratorial smile spread across her face. “Let’s not give it a name. How long has it been, Watson?”

The answer came quickly, more quickly than Joan would have liked: “A year.”

The promptness of the response seemed to please Moriarty, whose smile took on a different hue, one Joan didn’t like.

“I’m glad you didn’t pretend not to know.”

Joan wiped her forehead with the bottom of her shirt. She was sweating, could feel recent exertion staining her cheeks red. Moriarty, meanwhile, was dressed to the nines. Designer everything—tailored precisely, exquisitely. Perfectly made-up; perfectly manicured. Not a hair out of place. In the mid-morning glow, she was radiant.

“This is brazen,” Joan said, glancing around. Except for the occasional runner, theirs was a fairly secluded meeting place. Planned that way, no doubt—although police could be summoned quickly enough. What really surprised Joan was the absence of Moriarty’s bodyguards. She wondered where they were hiding. “Even for you.”

“Oh, hardly,” Moriarty replied, patting the bench. “Come.”

“No.”

“Please, Watson, I promise I’ll behave. I’ve missed you, after all.”

Joan looked over her shoulder, took a step back. She licked at her lips, which were dry.

“Missed me,” she echoed, thoughtlessly running her fingers along the back of her clammy neck. “Are you alone?”

“Yes. Please sit down, Joan.”

It was the name that did it, and how it was uttered. Joan’s mood took a glissando and she willingly sat at the far end of the bench. Not that distance mattered. When Moriarty scooted closer, the scene turned familiar, but the feelings it conjured were different, disconcerting.

“Did you receive the Ingres?” Moriarty asked, leaning closer still, her hand on the bench beside Joan’s thigh.

“Yes.” The Ingres. Jean-Auguste-Dominique. Joan had received the package six months earlier via courier, its content exquisite and surprising. Its sender unmistakable. Sherlock had been appalled. “Though I did wonder _why_.”

“Simply put, I wanted you to have it. I thought you would like it. Did you?”

Joan looked away, and up. An ancient elm shaded them. She suddenly felt cold, though the weather was perfect. She shivered and nodded.

“You’ve kept it, then? I was half-afraid you’d do away with it, given its provenance.”

“No, I kept it—once I made sure it was a reproduction.”

A sly smile stretched across Jamie’s face. They were so near each other, Joan could spot the specks of green in Moriarty’s otherwise clear, blue eyes. 

“It was rather good, but you don’t think I could possibly send you the genuine? _La Grande Odalisque_ hangs in the Louvre.”

“I’ve learned not to underestimate you,” Joan said plainly.

Moriarty smiled at what she seemed to perceive as a compliment. “Do you know the history of it?”

“Vaguely.”

“It was commissioned by Napoleon’s sister, of all people, and Ingres painted this—Orientalist pap, really. A sultan’s concubine. The elongated spine, the coy look over her shoulder. It shouldn’t work, but it’s masterfully done.”

“I don’t particularly like the narrative but, as art, it is oddly compelling,” Joan said, thinking of how long she’d spent staring at the thing, if only to search for Moriarty’s brushstrokes, to imagine her spending all of that time, brush in hand, copying. “And beautiful.”

Moriarty did not answer immediately. She searched Joan’s face for a few moments, her gaze wide, expectant. “I’m glad you think so. That is why I wanted you to have it,” she said, warm pleasure in her voice. “Have you missed me?”

It was a strange, oddly needy question. And what if Joan said yes? What would Moriarty do with that information?

“No,” Joan said. 

Moriarty leaned back. She brushed against Joan’s shoulder as she stretched her arm across the bench. “Where is it?” she asked. “The painting, I mean. You’ve not installed it in your bedroom, I gather.”

“It’s in storage, at the moment.”

“Ah. Are you mindful of Sherlock’s feelings, or is it something else? Why did you keep it at all, Watson?”

Moriarty’s perfume drifted close; it smelled like Datura, like sweet, penetrating angel’s trumpet.

“I told you,” Joan answered, suddenly and inexplicably angry, flustered. Her heart raced as she looked straight into Moriarty’s eyes. “Because it’s beautiful.”


	6. The Woman

“Ah, yes. Beauty.” Moriarty cocked her head as she gazed at Joan. They were unbearably close, but Joan managed to hold the stare. “Such a rare commodity in this world. And art—well, art. Even when it’s ugly, it’s beautiful, wouldn’t you say?”

“You didn’t come here to talk about art.”

“I came,” Moriarty said, “to see how you were. It has been so very long, dear Watson.”

“You couldn’t possibly know how annoying your prevaricating is.”

Moriarty’s gaze was unreadable, and then she smiled one of those smiles that never reached her eyes.

“It isn’t prevarication if I’ve answered your question truthfully.”

“What would you know about the truth? The idea that you would risk coming here just to see me is ludicrous.”

“And I suppose you’ve become something of an expert at guessing at my motivations? Careful, Watson. Hubris exacts very particular punishments.”

“You would know.”

“I wouldn’t want to see you humiliated, darling.”

You would know, Joan repeated, this time to herself as she rolled her eyes and rose from the bench. She might have run off—the thought did rear up in her head like a Klaxon; warning, warning—but before she could Moriarty seized her wrist. She didn’t tug but she didn’t let go either, not when Joan attempted to yank it back, her face growing hot with anger.

“Let go of me.”

“I will if you say you will stay.”

“Let. Go.”

After a moment, Moriarty did, but Joan didn’t escape the way she’d promised herself she would. Instead, she stood there, her heart pounding as she stared down at Moriarty, who sat with her legs crossed and her hands draped across her lap.

“Where has brave Watson gone to?” she asked.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“And yet you bolt the way a fox does when it senses the hounds closing in.”

“No. I’m right here, but your games bore me, and I’ve got things to do.”

Moriarty smiled slowly, slowly.

“Such as?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“If you tell me,” Moriarty sat back, arms stretched out along the back of the bench, looking grand as a queen on her throne, “I will tell you what I know about your current investigation.”

As tired as she was of Moriarty’s games, the words reflexively jolted Joan to attention.

“Bullshit,” she said, knowing that if Moriarty really had something, she would happily display the bait.

“Yasmin and Manny Balaguer were found dead in what turned out to be a rather peculiar crime scene, yes? I suspect that some of what’s been found suggests Santeria, or rather a bastardization of it. There was something ritualistic about the way certain key objects, and the bodies, were displayed.”

“How do you know any of this?”

Moriarty’s lips twitched.

“Well, I could go on but I do believe it’s your turn to share, Watson.”

It should have been easy, walking away. Saying fuck you and turning around, not glancing back, would have been an excellent way of ending their encounter. But Joan couldn’t bring herself to do it, not if Moriarty really had the information she claimed to have.

Joan sighed.

“My mother has some of my things in storage. I have to finish going through boxes before she throws them out.”

Moriarty stood up, and to Joan’s complete dismay said, “That sounds like it could be quite illuminating. I’ll come with you and fill you in on what I know.”

“No.”

“No?”

Moriarty’s smile never left her face, it just shifted, took on new and infuriating meaning.

Looking away, Joan bit back another sigh.

“Fuck,” she murmured, capitulating without saying another word.

When she saw Joan’s surrender the smile on Moriarty’s face only widened.

“Wonderful,” she said. “My car is waiting.”

—

As much as Joan tried to coax the information out of her, Moriarty talked very little on their ride to the storage facility, and only really acknowledged she’d made a promise once they were walking down a long, dank hall towards the unit.

“The Balaguers were not victims of a ritual killing.”

“We didn’t think they were. The whole scene, it was too staged. Someone wanted the police to think it was, though.”

“Yes,” Moriarty murmured, but once they were in the unit, with its rows and rows of neatly-labeled and stacked boxes, she became distracted. “‘ _Joanie_.’”

“God, don’t.”

It was horrible, having Moriarty breathing down her neck as she sorted through clothes and books and—

“Is that a diary?”

“No. _No_. You don’t get to look at that. It’s bad enough I brought you here at all. No.”

Moriarty didn’t put up any kind of fight. Instead, she reached around Joan, having found one of her yearbooks. Joan almost pulled it out of her grasp, but Moriarty skillfully maneuvered away, sat at a corner and began flipping through it. Joan ignored her. Better to finish as quickly as possible and get out.

A few minutes later, unfortunately, Moriarty was at her elbow again, pointing at a picture and asking, “Who’s this?”

It was Roxanne. Joan frowned, then looked away and resumed her task.

“A friend.”

“She was quite pretty. You’re beside her in almost every one of your photographs.”

“A close friend.”

“What was her name?”

“I’m sure there’s a caption.”

Moriarty glanced down, tapped her fingernail against the page.

“Roxanne Choudhary,” she read. “Roxanne, like Cyrano’s paramour.” She glanced at Joan. “What happened to her?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged, amending, “I don’t know.”

“You never looked her up? Not even after you became a _consulting detective_?” Moriarty asked. She might as well have been holding her nose.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You ended on bad terms.”

Joan pressed her teeth together so hard it hurt. “Stop. That’s enough,” she said, tearing the book out of Moriarty’s hands.

Moriarty gave her a long look, but said nothing. When she did speak, it was to say:

“Your focus should shift away from the Balaguers. I suspect poor Manny hadn’t a clue what he married into. Yasmin Ortiz should be your point of interest.”

“Yasmin Diaz. Her maiden name was Diaz.”

“No, she changed that.”

“There’s no record of a name change.”

“There wouldn’t be. She did it in Cuba.”

“How do you—“

“Because her father is Wilfredo ‘Willy’ Ortiz, and his organization, which spreads across the Caribbean, is one I’ve had numerous dealings with. I met Yasmin once, when she was fifteen. She was a talented pianist, but she was cowed by her father and brother into abandoning her own ambitions. I haven’t had dealings with Willy in some years, but the last I did he told me the sad story of his daughter Yasmin’s betrayal. Apparently, she escaped his clutches when she turned eighteen, changed her name, and subsequently vanished, having absconded with quite a bit of her father’s cash.”

Joan processed the information.

“Didn’t vanish completely enough,” she surmised.

“No, I would say not.”

A phone vibrated. Moriarty pulled it from her clutch, looked at it. Was instantly annoyed. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Don’t let me stop you.”

Moriarty inched closer, tilting her head towards Joan, examining, dissecting, with those clear blue eyes of hers.

“You haven’t contacted the authorities. Not once. Neither has Sherlock, though you’ve no doubt kept him apprised of my communications. Why is that?”

“He’s extending me a professional courtesy.”

Moriarty’s mouth twisted. “Is that so? Perhaps you’re angling for too large a fish?”

“I’m well aware of the mistake I could be making.”

“I don’t think you are, Watson, but far be it for me to warn you off. Quite the contrary. Never underestimate your opponents. You taught me that.”

Joan didn’t know what to say. Some part of her was flattered.

“What do you really want from me?”

A glancing touch along Joan’s cheek, her jaw.

“Nothing untoward,” Moriarty murmured, leaning ever closer. Joan didn’t, couldn’t, move. “Nothing not willingly given.”

Joan swallowed and said, “Another stupid game.”

Moriarty’s lips were so close, Joan swore she could feel them as she answered.

“A challenge.”


	7. Kuruntokai

When Oren called to tell her Gabrielle was pregnant, Joan was overjoyed for her brother. The couple had been trying for a year, and hearing the happiness in his voice elicited in Joan a sympathetic joy. “I’m going to spoil that baby rotten,” she told him, and meant it.

The celebratory dinner that followed, however, was less of a joyous occasion. Dinner itself was fine—it was when Joan’s mother cornered her in the kitchen later that things took a turn for the irritatingly predictable.

“You must be over the moon, Mom,” Joan said, trying to preempt whatever was about to come out of her mother’s mouth. “A grandchild’s a real blessing. I’m sure you were beginning to think it was never going to happen.”

“I am, of course, Joanie. And I never lost hope, not even—”

“I mean, I’m sure it was a disappointment that I was never going to, I don’t know, contribute in that regard,” Joan continued, interrupting her mother, guessing at the thread she was following, picking it up while silently congratulating herself on using offense as defense. “So I’m glad you’re going to get to experience it. A baby to dote over should keep you pretty busy.”

“Yes,” her mother answered, smiling wanly and, to Joan’s dismay, refusing to be deterred. “But I still worry about you, Joanie.”

“Mom, you don’t need to worry. I’m fine. I’m working.”

“You’re lonely.”

“No, I don’t have time to be lonely. Besides, I’ve got Sherlock, I’ve got—”

“Sherlock, yes. Your work, fine. But that’s not what I meant by lonely, Joanie. Not lonely when you’re out in the world, surrounded by people. I mean, in your heart.”

“Come on, Mom.”

“Are you going to tell me you’re seeing someone?”

“No,” Joan admitted. “I’m not. Not at the moment. It’s just hard to— It’s hard meeting the right people, I suppose.”

“How about trying one of those dating sites? I know that one of Oren’s friends had some luck—”

Joan scoffed openly and reached for the bottle of Merlot sitting on the counter. She poured a glass and took a long drink before she said,

“Look, I’m not desperate. If it happens, then it happens.” She sighed at the pleading look her mother was giving her. “This is Oren’s big day. Be happy for him and try to remember that I’m okay. Really.”

Joan’s mother smiled again, this time with somewhat more conviction, and put her arm around Joan’s shoulders; it was only when she had sagged into the embrace that Joan realized how tense she was, how punishingly straight her posture had been.

“I’m your mother,” Mary said, as if that explained everything. “No matter how old you get, or how old I get—I just want you to be happy, Joanie.”

Joan dropped her head to her mother’s shoulder, closed her eyes.

“I know, Mom. I know.”

–

The Brownstone was dark when she got home later that evening, and so Joan assumed, as she opened the door, that Sherlock would be out, or asleep. Instead, she found him sitting on the floor by his favorite chair, in the Lotus Position, staring blankly into space.

She was about to pass by without comment when he stopped her.

“You’ve a package. I left it on your bed.”

“Okay,” she said, not feeling up to reminding him that her bedroom was still off-limits, that privacy was a real thing people enjoyed in parts of the world.

“It’s rather small. After shaking it, I surmised it was a single object. Solid. A book, perhaps.”

“Great,” she said curtly, putting a hand on the banister, exhausted from a night of having to defend her life, of convincing her mother—and maybe even herself—that she was perfectly fine. “Anything else?”

A smile appeared, and quickly disappeared, from his face.

“Have you any acquaintances in Bangladesh?”

“What?”

“Your package. It was postmarked in Dhaka, Bangladesh.”

“I— No.”

Joan was tired, a little buzzed. Nothing coming out of Sherlock’s mouth was making much sense.

“Well,” Sherlock said, clucking his tongue. “Interesting.”

Joan sighed, gripped the railing and pulled herself up the stairs.

“Yeah,” she echoed. “Interesting.”

She wasn’t in the mood to indulge Sherlock’s curiosity, and she wasn’t even going to open the package he seemed so fascinated by until morning, giving him plenty of time to stew in things that weren’t any of his business. But when she got to her room and saw it sitting on her bed, her own curiosity was piqued. She found a box cutter, sliced the tape apart, pulled apart the flaps. There, wrapped in gauzy white paper, was a book called _Kuruntokai_. Joan picked it up. When she began to leaf through it, a note slipped out. Joan stared at it like it was a bomb about to go off. It didn’t, of course, and when she finally picked it up to look at it, she bit at her lip, felt her heart thrum in her ears.

It read:

_Darling Joan,_

_Is this too forward? I have always found books to be the very best gifts, and you indeed seem like the sort of woman who would appreciate this. A man I met in Nepal recommended I read it, and after I did I could only think of you. Perhaps you’ll think of me as well._

_M_

Joan put the note aside, wondered what Sherlock would think, and whether she should show it to him at all. She undressed. She brushed her teeth. Got into bed. Put her glasses on as she went from poem to poem, wondering just what it was Moriarty had meant. What her game was.

And she found herself repeatedly stopping at one particular verse. It was called Red Earth and Pouring Rain.

_What could my mother be to yours?_

_What kin my father to yours anyway?_

_How did you and I meet ever?_

_But in love, our hearts have mingled_

_As red earth and pouring rain._

She fell asleep with the book on her chest, and when she awoke the next morning, it was to find Sherlock prying it from her fingers.

“Please never do this again,” she murmured as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

“It’s from her, then,” he said, scowling. “What an odd thing. What a very odd thing.”

“She likes to confuse,” Joan said, pulling her blanket up to her chest. “The poetry is beautiful, though.”

“She appreciates art,” Sherlock said quietly. Then, “Be careful, Watson.”

Joan rolled her eyes, shooed him from her room.

In the quiet, she closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

She dreamed of digging her feet into clay-thick dirt; she dreamed of monsoon, of jasmine. Of _her_.


	8. The Ghost and the Waiting Corpse

They leaned over the body as Bell spoke, giving them details the police had already gleaned from the crime scene. Sherlock was half-listening, already making his own assessments as his gaze swept across the room. Joan took mental notes.

Her phone chimed. Both Bell and Sherlock looked at her while she took it out of her pocket and read the message. Whatever Sherlock saw on her face, he turned dead-eyed as he dismissed her.

“Go on, then. Our poor Mr. Pallister isn’t going anywhere, is he? He can wait while you read your text message.”

She shook her head, irritated by the iciness in his voice.

“Not important,” she said. 

“No?”

“No.”

It was when they were home, after they’d spent the better part of two hours discussing their current case, that Sherlock questioned her.

“It was her, was it not?”

Joan pretended not to understand what he was asking. “Hmm?”

“While we were out, you received a message. It was her.”

He wasn’t angry, but his query was intense, focused. And Joan was tired. She was so very tired of this particular subject.

“If you’re so sure you know it all, why bother asking? Yes. It was.”

His mouth turned down as he thought. He nodded several times before saying, “I wish you’d give this up.”

“She’s the one calling me.”

“Perhaps. But you could end it.”

“End what?”

 “Her fascination.”

“Sherlock, she isn’t fascinated by me. She’s fascinated _by you_ —and by extension, me. She just wants to get under your skin, and I’m the proxy. Going by this conversation, I would say it’s working.”

“No,” he said, wagging his finger. “No, it’s _you_ , Watson. She sees in you what I see. Except to her you’re not a potential partner, only a more complicated sort of game.” He waved his hand. “I don’t like it.”

“She won’t hurt me.”

“That’s the most naive thing I’ve heard you say,” he said, alarmed. “She won’t kill you, not yet, but there’s nothing to stop her from hurting you. There’s no need for this, you know? One call to the FBI, one slip-up on her part. You’ve had her once, you can do it again. Or is there some other reason you’re delaying the inevitable?”

“That’s… No.”

“I know her ways. Even after the revelation—even in that moment of clarity there was something about her— Something in me that kept wanting her. But that’s playing with fire, Watson.”

“Sherlock, whatever you’re insinuating—”

“I’m not insinuating a thing. I’ve deduced your motivations; _her_ motivations. That doesn’t change who and what she is, or the fact that you think solving her will keep you from falling into her game. I’ll have you know that you’re already in it. Knowing her won’t necessarily mean besting her. She’s quite good at games.”

Joan looked down at her hands, tucked her feet up on the couch as she thought of something to say. Something that would prove Sherlock wrong. Instead, she said, “I can win. I know I can.”

 Sherlock’s face drooped. “Not at this. She’ll destroy you before she’ll allow it.”

“The difference is she can’t gaslight me with the ghost of Irene. I know better.”

“Do you? For your sake, I hope that’s true.”

He left the room.

Joan’s phone chimed.

_Are you free?_

—–

 _No_ , she wrote. No to the first query. No to the second, and the third. The tenth. No, she repeated, over and over again. Every few weeks, another try. Every few weeks, another rejection. Months into it, Joan stopped receiving the invitations. They stopped cold and for a time she missed them. For a time, she was almost sorry they had ended.

And then the day came. It was like almost any other Saturday, except that sometime before noon Joan received the call from Oren that Gabrielle had gone into labor. _Would you bring Mom to the hospital?_

She did, and they visited with Gabrielle until Joan understood that every time the nurse stepped in, the room was too crowded, that Gabrielle needed room to breathe.

“I’m stepping out,” she told Oren, who looked ashen, nervous. She took his face between her hands. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be great. Okay?”

He smiled shakily, and it was good enough.

She stepped out into the corridor. Read a book on melittology she’d borrowed from Sherlock’s collection. Walked down the halls, instantly overwhelmed by the familiar and constant scent of every hospital she had ever been in: an antiseptic odor mingling with and barely overcoming all of the other functions of life—of birth and death and everything in between.

She walked and walked, out of boredom and a sense that there was nothing else she could do. She might have gone home and had Oren call her when the baby was born, but she felt a deep, familial duty to stay.

After she read some more, checked in with Sherlock, and had a lousy salad in the cafeteria, she once again set about Lenox Hill’s corridors, remembering how comfortable, how at ease, she had once felt in a hospital. It didn’t feel comfortable anymore. It felt strangely alien, and forbidden—like she’d stepped foot in a land from which she’d been banished.

It was that unsettling thought that lingered as she turned the corner and saw a woman talking to a doctor outside of Dermatology. It could have been anyone, an ordinary patient having a chat about her care, but when she turned, her profile became unmistakable.

Her hair was loose, and she was dressed casually. She smiled at her doctor, reaching for her back, gesturing, pointing, explaining—Joan couldn’t know. And then it was done. The conversation was at an end. The woman shook her doctor’s hand and turned to leave.

She turned and faced Joan.

It was, perhaps, the first time Joan had ever seen Moriarty fully surprised.


	9. Ponte Vecchio

It was gratifying, beyond gratifying, catching a glimpse, however brief, of a Moriarty without artifice, without calculation. Without choice.

But of course it did not last. In the span of a few moments, she had reconciled herself to the situation, composed herself. Her posture straightened. Her expression schooled itself into coolness. Even from a distance, Joan could see the shift, the metamorphosis from whatever Moriarty truly was into what she chose to show to the world.

The transformation was complete when the ghost of an imperious smile drifted across her face.

“Watson,” she said. The sound of it carried down the hall, and the way she said it was a compliment in and of itself. The pleasurable warmth Joan found in Moriarty’s voice, in the utterance of her name, scared her.

Joan did not smile. She crossed her arms and uttered to herself what had now become mantra: _Never trust her._

Neither one of them moved. They stood on opposite ends of the short hall like Old West duelers waiting for the clock to strike noon.

Moriarty fired first: “This is a coincidence, is it not?”

“What else could it be?”

“Considering your complete disdain for me, I would say it must be pure chance—my luck, and your misfortune.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I would ask you the same.”

“My sister-in-law is in labor.”

Moriarty tilted her head; eyed Joan, up and down.

“Congratulations,” she said. “I do believe Obstetrics is in some other part of this hospital, however.”

“It is. I was wandering.”

Moriarty only nodded, smiled in a way that didn’t reach her eyes. “And look what you’ve stumbled upon,” she said.

“I won’t say I’m not surprised,” Joan said, thinking they must seem strange to anyone walking by, talking to one another as they were from across the hall. Moriarty stood rigidly where she had first glimpsed Joan and Joan’s arms were still crossed defensively, waiting for salvos. “Are you here for a check-up? Or another biopsy?”

Moriarty’s smile twisted ugly. She didn’t answer the question, only said, a touch of contempt in her tone, “It’s nice to see you’re doing well.”

“Is it?”

“Hmm. I must admit I’ve wondered, from time to time, how you were, despite your staunch refusal to see me.”

“Can you really blame me?”

“Blame? No, I don’t blame. Although, to be honest, I did expect a bit more from you. You seemed…interested.”

“Interested in what?” Joan replied sharply, too sharply; too emotionally. She held back a wince.

“Perhaps that’s too strong a word. Perhaps curious? Intrigued? Is that more to your liking, Watson?”

“Not really.”

“Same as ever, Joan. Entrenched in your black-and-white world.”

“There are some choices that are pretty easy to avoid making. Murder, for instance.”

“Are we back to that, then?”

“It’s always going to be about the things you’ve done,” Joan said. “How is that hard to understand?”

At that, Moriarty looked away, very briefly. Just long enough to cross the distance between them. She leaned her shoulder against the wall next to Joan, looked at her with a cutting eye. “Do I horrify you, Joan Watson? Why? Because you think I am amoral? Does my acceptance that power is the world’s truest commodity make it so? Am I a monster in your eyes? Well, let me pull the blindfold back, just a bit, hmm? Trafficking in money and power is not so very unusual. There have always been people like me. There will always be people like me.”

“What you did to Sherlock—”

“A means to an end. He was in my way.”

“No. You shattered him for your own fun.”

“Shattered? Last I looked, Sherlock was thriving. He has his work. He has you. He wouldn’t if not for me.”

“He suffered for a year.”

“He had a weakness, and he used Irene’s death as an excuse to wallow in it. That’s not my responsibility.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“He’s even sharper than he’s ever been, and with you by his side—why he’s a force of nature.” Moriarty leaned forward and mock-whispered, “Criminals tremble in his wake.”

Joan was still gaping when the doctor Moriarty had been talking to earlier walked by. He stopped when he saw her.

“You’re still here! I was about to call you, Ms. Hanover, so it’s lucky that I caught you before you left the building…”

Joan watched Moriarty bite her lip; her face had changed again. She’d become whoever it was this doctor—Joan glanced at his badge; Dr. Mirabal—knew. Ms. Hanover. _What’s she like?_ Joan wondered. In her mind, this version of Moriarty was sweet, deferential. _What are the odds of that ever being true? In what alternate universe do the stars align differently?_

“I don’t mind coming back some other time,” Moriarty interrupted, slipping into her American accent like it was a well-worn coat. “If it’s not urgent?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to suggest that. I thought it would be beneficial if you took a routine blood test, that’s all.”

“It can wait?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t put it off for very long. All right?”

Moriarty smiled politely as he said his good-byes.

When they were alone again, Joan said, “I thought you’d have a private doctor.”

“I have,” Moriarty said tersely, back to herself. “But it’s this man who’s previously saved my life, so I don’t mind making a special trip now and again.” She paused before saying, “Tell me, have you been to Florence?”

Joan frowned, surprised by the random turn in their conversation, by the mercurial shift in Moriarty’s tone.

“Briefly,” she said. “On a tour, when I was in high school.”

“You should see it again. The vista changes rather dramatically the older one gets. I could take you.”

Joan only frowned.

“Yes, of course,” Moriarty said, leaning back against the wall, her eyes straying to and fixing on a fluorescent light that flickered, flickered. There was something studiously off-handed about the way she said, “I once kissed a girl on the Ponte Vecchio. There, crushed in next to insufferable tourists. She was exquisite.” Joan couldn’t understand why she was suddenly holding her breath. She inhaled deeply, noisily. Moriarty’s sudden gaze burned. “So are you, Joan,” she said.

And Joan was unable to look away.

The spell broke when Moriarty’s phone buzzed. When she looked at it, her entire demeanor shifted. Transformed.

“Good-bye, Watson,“ she said, already walking away. "Give my regards to Sherlock.”


	10. The Hounds of...

Daniel Oren Watson was one month old and sleeping on his auntie’s shoulder when she received a text message that read:

Should you ever be curious—  
User: jwatson  
Pass: 1kjo5&9IKdaR4z

A day later, a second message arrived—via telegram, of all things—containing a URL to what Joan would later discover to be a secure email server. She didn’t log in for three days. On the third day—third night; it was insomnia that precipitated her actions—she gave in. There were already two emails waiting for her. The first was short, perfunctory:

_Although I fully suspect that you will, and I cannot prevent it, I would prefer it if you did not tell Sherlock about this._

The second, sent only a day later, read:

_March 25, —_

_Dearest Watson,_

_While I normally find electronic communication rather sterile, at the moment I find it impossible to reach out any other way. It is entirely possible I am sending this into the ether, but I suspect that soon after I have written this letter you will read it, if not out of curiosity then perhaps out of some sense of duty to know what foul deeds I am up to as of late. Rest assured that my behaviour has been honourable._

_I have been thinking of your Mr. Kierkegaard. We had a brief conversation, you and I, on his theory that boredom is the root of all evil. You echoed his words, at least, in the way university students taking their first philosophy course might. In truth, you did not finish the quote, which was that we are bored, and because we are bored we refuse the nature of our own existence. We seek and we seek, and failing to find we become destructive. That is worthy of some contemplation, I’ll admit, although good and evil remain in my estimation the inventions of absolutists._

_Joan, I think of you at the strangest moments. There is a solace in thinking that it isn’t you I desire but rather desire itself. That desire is the most futile of exercises, and yet perhaps that is why I’ve become so oddly fixated. You remain so intractably free from my grasp._

_My candor must surprise you, even though I have been honest with you about a great many things. Sherlock will say that I am a liar. And I am, indeed. I lie quite easily and without remorse, but the truth slips out often enough for you. You may refuse my games, Joan, but I shall willingly play yours._

_Regards,_

_M_

Joan read and reread the message so many times she was sure she had memorized it. It was the dead of night and she was yawning into her fist when she made the decision to reply:

_Right now I’d say I’m a little bored, too, which is probably why I am making the mistake of answering at all. It’s two in the morning; I was up late working on a case. It’s a bad one. Grisly. The kind of scene that doesn’t leave your head for a long time. So, I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep, and you sent me a telegram. Let’s get this straight, though: just because I don’t brook bullshit doesn’t mean I’m playing a game. If we’re going to have this exchange then you’d better remember that._

_I should thank you for something, though. Your tip on Yasmin Balaguer was on the money. We were able to track down the hitman through some of Sherlock’s more interesting connections. A partial fingerprint and some grainy CCTV footage got him to confess, but he didn’t rat on Willy Ortiz. Not that we were expecting him to, but there’s always hope someone will do the right thing._

_Your “honesty”–I’m not exactly sure how to respond to that. I’m not sure I can believe it. But even if I do, so what? What am I supposed to do with that information when it comes from you? How can I be honest when the smart thing would be to assume you’ll use it against me? The truth is it doesn’t matter._

_As for your request I not show this to Sherlock? Fuck you. Never ask me to do that again._

She hit send before she could even contemplate what she was doing. When she woke up the next morning, Sherlock was hovering over her bed, a live wire bouncing with frustrated energy.

“There’s been a break in the case, Watson, how can you sleep?”

Pulling the blanket back over her head, she answered, “I can’t. That’s the problem.”

“Well, you can try again later. Aren’t you curious to know what’s happened?”

Unfortunately, she was. She nodded wearily as she threw the blanket aside and got out of bed. Sherlock followed her to the bathroom. Talked through the door as she peed; as she showered; as she changed. He talked as she made tea, allowing her to interject whenever she had a question. Then he went on, and she listened.

When he stopped to catch his breath, she said, “Moriarty emailed me.”

Sherlock went from surprised to excited in the span of two seconds. “To your email address? Perhaps the communiqué can be tracked? I wouldn’t think so. I imagine she’d be careful—”

“No, I mean…” Joan paused. “She’s using a private server to communicate with me.”

There was something childish about Sherlock’s exaggerated frown, about the way he placed his hands on his head and paced the length of the room, his strides long and precise.

“Mmm. For how long?”

“She only sent one message. It wasn’t pertinent to anything in particular, she was just reaching out.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because she’s interested in me.”

Sherlock’s long arm rose up like a rocket. “Ah ha,” he exclaimed, pointing at the ceiling. “And you—did you reply, then?”

“Yes.”

“What did you reply?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’ve just told me you replied. Did you send a blank email, Watson?”

Joan rolled her eyes, rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her tea was too weak. She needed good, strong coffee.

Sherlock continued: “Not that she should leave you alone?”

“She knows that.”

“She knows it so well that she’s directing you to receive encrypted emails, and you’re responding with nothing?”

“Look, I just— I need some space, Sherlock. Just let me figure this out on my own.

“Space? For what _space_? To chat up a self-avowed murderer? I can see rank dissent writ large on your face, so I’ll clarify: Moriarty was in prison because of _you_. Her motives are not pure.”

Watson covered her face. Her head was pounding. “I understand. You don’t have to say it.”

“You cannot trust her.”

“I know,” Joan repeated, feeling queasy. Unnerved. “I know.”


	11. M is for Mercy

The brownstone sat dark as Joan fit her key into the front door lock. It was supposed to be empty, too, but as she stepped inside she saw that there was definitely a person sitting in the living room, framed in hues of gray and black. Her heart slammed against her chest, and she simultaneously pressed one hand to it and raised her crutch as an impromptu weapon.

The person spoke:

“Is that why you stayed on, then? What happened?”

“Oh, God. It’s _you_.”

“Yes,” Moriarty said, still just a faceless silhouette. “Only me. Your foot?”

“I sprained my ankle.”

“How?”

Joan’s face warmed with embarrassment. She felt like an eighth grader, all misplaced hormones and emotions.

“I was ice skating,” she confessed. “With a cousin.”

“But that’s sweet.”

There was gently mocking laughter in Moriarty’s voice, but Joan ignored it as she hobbled to the closest lamp. She was about to pull the cord when Moriarty said,

“Don’t be alarmed.”

“You know,” Joan said, as the living room was bathed in a dim glow, “if you say that I am going to be alarmed.”

The first thing she saw when she turned her attention back to Moriarty was the gun in her hand. The second was the crimson stain that bloomed at the front of her jacket. She held her free hand there, and her fingers were similarly covered in blood.

“What the hell happened?” Joan asked, as she grabbed her crutches and made a beeline for the hall closet, to her medical kit. “ _What did you do?_ ”

“Darling, must we begin with recriminations?”

When Joan returned, she tried to assess the situation. A gunshot wound—given the amount of blood, probably a flesh wound. Moriarty was splayed out on Sherlock’s armchair. She was in obvious distress.

“What did you do?” Joan repeated.

Moriarty winced as she shifted in the chair, but she seemed more annoyed than angry as she answered: “An employee—my driver, who had been with me for three years, whom I trusted—conspired with a second party to have me killed. Unfortunately, I had to let him go.”

“You killed him.”

“Yes. And the man he let into my car, who gave me this.” She peeled her hand away from her wound, grimaced. “It hurts quite a bit more than I imagined it would. Will you help me?”

“How did you know Sherlock wouldn’t be here?”

“Now, Watson, you know I have my ways. I knew he would be in Philadelphia tonight. I also knew you wouldn’t be with him, though the why of it was a mystery until now. It was my plan to visit you; this only changed the circumstances a bit.”

“Wasn’t there someone else you could call?”

“Of course, but I was in the neighborhood. Wasn’t there an oath you were required to take, Dr. Watson, or does that not apply once you’ve stopped practicing?”

“I’ll help you, but you have to give me the gun.”

Moriarty’s smile was pained. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she said.

“Then you’re on your own.”

“This is my insurance policy.”

Joan stepped closer. “Give me the gun,” she said, voice hard. “I won’t call the police. I promise.”

Moriarty gave her a long look. Then her features contorted, and she capitulated, holding out the gun for Joan to take. Joan tucked it in the nearby bookcase.

“Come on. We’ll go to the guest room. You’re bleeding on the furniture.”

“I’m touched by your concern,” Moriarty replied as she struggled to her feet. Together, they walked to the bedroom. It was a slow go. “Look at us, a pair of invalids.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Joan said.

Moriarty glanced at her but didn’t say a thing about that, just shrugged out of her brown, leather jacket and, with some difficulty, pulled her shirt over her head so that Joan could inspect the wound.

“Good,” she said. “It looks like the bullet only grazed you. Let me wash my hands and I’ll take care of it. I’ve got lidocaine, but nothing for the pain. You’ll have to get something on your own.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Because of your junkie. Do you mind if I sit down now? I’m feeling rather unsteady.”

Though it angered her, Joan let the Sherlock comment slide.

“Lie down, on your good side. I’ll be right back.”

—

“Here,” Joan said, throwing Moriarty one of her shirts. “How does it feel?”

“I could use a whisky.”

“Great. Leave and get yourself one.”

“What hospitality.”

“I’m serious. Call one of your goons and get out of here before I decide to break my promise.”

Moriarty, flushed from the pain she was feeling, shrugged. “You could,” she said. “There’s no one to stop you. I’m certainly in no condition.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“I just don’t think you will. Sit with me.”

“No.”

“Come, Watson, don’t be difficult.”

Joan vacillated for a few moments. There really wasn’t anything Moriarty could do, that was true. And so why wasn’t Joan calling the cops? She rubbed her face, limped to the bed, sat beside her and said, without any conviction, “I really hate you.”

“That’s fine, darling. All the best people do.”

Then she turned her head, leaned in, and gave Joan a slow, exacting kiss.

Joan didn’t refuse it. Joan kissed back until reason won out.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t do that.”

“But it’s so pleasant.”

“It isn’t,” Joan said. “It’s not pleasant.”

“No,” Moriarty agreed, her gaze searching, searching.

They kissed again. This time it lasted longer; made Joan’s stomach twist with the heat of it. One of Moriarty’s hands tangled in her hair.

“You need to go,” she said, pulling away again, upset by the quaver in her voice. “Go and…convalesce. Alone.”

“Yes. Of course,” Moriarty said, her gaze intent, her expression unreadable. “Thanks for the assistance. You’re very skilled.”

Her lips were wet and Joan couldn’t stop looking at them. She swallowed hard, and although she couldn’t exactly run away she did her best to put as much distance between them as she stood up, grabbed her crutches, and left the room. Moriarty took her time following.

Joan found the gun.

“Here,” she said, holding it out. “Don’t come back.”

Moriarty smiled.

“As you wish, Joan.”


	12. Unknown Caller

Joan sat in bed, photographs and crime scene reports fanned out in front of her. She stared and stared at them, sat back, pushed her glasses up, rubbed the bridge of her nose. The M.E. had reported post-mortem strangulation, but…

In the quiet of night, her ringtone blared like an alarm. She grabbed it and silenced it, surprised by the interruption.

She glanced at the screen. Unknown caller.

She answered, irritated: “Joan Watson.”

The voice on the other end of the line, on the other hand, was a gliding susurration: “Hello, Joan Watson.”

Unknown caller. _Always unknown caller_ , Joan thought. _I have to remember that._ Remember and hit decline. Decline. Why couldn’t she just end the call now? She could have, she knew. And yet she didn’t.

Joan tried to formulate a response, but none was forthcoming.

Her eyes drifted across the photographs she’d arranged on the bed, pictures of a cold-blooded murder. And now, on the phone, a woman who had killed, who would in all likelihood kill again. A woman Joan had deemed fit to kiss. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to forget that mistake, hadn’t been able to erase how it had felt. How much she’d liked it.

“What do you want?” she finally asked, after a deep, steadying inhalation.

“It’s been months. I thought you might be worried.”

“No, not really.”

“My pride, Joan. You wound it.”

“Joan,” she murmured, inspecting ligature marks; imagining the force required to make them, the terror inflicted in those last moments. “What do I call you?”

A soft hum before the reply: “Whatever you’d like.”

“Irene?”

“If that’s what you prefer.”

“But that’s not your real name.”

“It has been my name, at times. But why would you claim it? Irene is Sherlock’s construct. And, anyway, what’s in a name? Do I feel any differently whether I scribble down Adler or Moriarty?”

“That’s the thing, though. Irene isn’t any more of a character than Moriarty. You’re both of them. All of them.”

“Your analysis fascinates me. How much time have you spent thinking about me, darling?”

How much time? Too much. Too much just trying to expel her from all thought, but the harder Joan tried, the more the specter of Moriarty reared its ugly head.

And so she changed the subject.

“How did you heal, after the incident?”

“The incident. Hm. Quite well. I’ve a small scar. Perhaps I’ll show it to you sometime.”

Joan rolled her eyes as she gathered up the documents and shoved them into a folder. She dropped it off the edge of the bed and lay back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling as she said, “You know, Sherlock thought that was premeditated.”

“You told him about it?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Was it because you felt guilty?”

“There was no reason to keep it from him.”

“None?”

Joan let the comment slide. Didn’t acknowledge Moriarty’s implication nor the reminder of what had happened between them as she pressed on, “Was it?”

“Are you asking whether I planned to shoot myself so that I might get closer to you? And I suppose you think I have a big ego?”

“I think it’s a fair question, given how you operate.”

“In the past four months, Joan, I’ve spent a good deal of time tracking down the persons responsible for that attempt on my life. I have killed five thus far. I’m not a fan of pain; even Sherlock knows that.”

“You shouldn’t call me anymore.”

“Perhaps I’ll write, then. Perhaps I’ll send the letters to your mother’s house? I would so enjoy having a secret correspondence. Or wouldn’t you like that? Don’t you find it the slightest bit thrilling, that you’re so often on my mind?” A pause. Joan didn’t say anything. Her mind was racing—every possible response, every sharp, angry thing she could say to put Moriarty off, stayed on the tip of her tongue. If she wanted to, she could push it all out of her mouth. Or she could end the conversation without saying a thing. She had all of the power, and she used none of it. She waited. She wanted to hear what came next.

“Tell me,” Moriarty said with a soft sigh, “are you in bed? It’s rather late so I imagine you are.”

“Why?”

“Do you ever think of me there, with you?”

“No.” Terse, but Joan’s knees came together, and desire balled low in her stomach, a tight hot thing she wished she could will away. She tried, she did try, but her mouth was dry and the knot in her belly only grew and grew. “Of course not.”

“No? Oh, don’t lie, Watson. You’re normally so very forthright.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Joan said, pressing a fist to her sternum. She could feel it, could feel the strong thud-thud of her heart. _No_ , she thought. No.

“It’s a bit out of control, really, my… infatuation. I was sure it was mutual.”

Joan blushed. There, alone, in her bedroom. She blushed for no one, closed her eyes, squeezed the phone. Frustrated, she said, “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want,” Moriarty said, her voice low, low, “you to tell me that you think of me. Or maybe just that you’d like me there, between your thighs. Whatever you can manage.”

Joan couldn’t manage. She lowered the phone and ended the call.  Pressed her hands to her face. Waited and waited for Unknown Caller to flash on her phone’s screen. Did she really want it to?

It didn’t, and she was sorry, so sorry, for the disappointment that bloomed in her chest, for that bitter disappointment that should have been relief.


	13. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

It was a drizzling, cold, flat day filled with errands and the ignoring of a nascent flu. Joan only wanted to be indoors, drinking a hot cup of tea, and she was thinking of making one as soon as they arrived at the brownstone when Sherlock stopped short. Joan, who had been distractedly scanning her text messages, looked up as she bumped into him from behind.

“What—?”

Then she saw what had caught Sherlock’s attention. There, leaning against the front door, was a wooden box. A thin, rectangular box. Five feet wide, seven feet tall. Perfect for a large canvas.

“She is persistent, is she not?” asked Sherlock, frowning down at Joan as he reached into his pocket for his keys. “What is she on now, I wonder? David? Caravaggio? Any guesses, Watson?”

It was, in fact, the first of any kind of communication from Moriarty in over six months, which was the longest Joan had gone without hearing from her since the beginning of their entanglement. She had thought, with a strange dissatisfaction, that Moriarty had finally given up, but the arrival of this new gift filled Joan with a surge of pleasure she would never share with Sherlock.

“Shall we bring it inside?” he asked.

“I… Should we?”

“That’s up to you. It’s yours, after all, and no doubt you’re curious to see it.”

It was no use denying it. Joan nodded.

Together they carried the box into the living room. Sherlock fetched a crow bar, pried it apart to reveal the canvas underneath. It was covered, and Sherlock gestured at it with a grand sweep of his arm.

Joan pulled the tarp off with one, sharp tug, and took a step back. Stared.

“Artemisia Gentileschi,” Sherlock murmured. “ _Venus and Cupid_.”

“It’s amazing,” Joan said, because it was and there was nothing else to say. Nothing about its provenance. Nothing about whatever it was it signified, what it was Moriarty meant by giving it to Joan. Nothing at all.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, as if to say, _Is that all?_

He said, “Yes. She’s always had good taste. The detail is magnificent. A very fine reproduction, indeed.”

“Why doesn’t she do her own work?”

“She told me once there was nothing she, or anyone, could add to what had already been done. At the time I thought she was underestimating her ability, but it’s obvious now that her true art, her gift, has been applied elsewhere.”

Together they stared at the painting for a good half-minute, standing there in their gloves, forgetting to shake the rain out of their hair.

“Do you still love her?” Joan asked quietly.

He didn’t reply immediately, but leaned close to the painting, outlining with his index finger the reclining nude. When he stepped back he answered, “That stubborn, self-destructive part of me, I suppose. That part of me that still craves heroin.” He turned his head, gave Joan a scrutinizing look. “And how do you feel, Watson?”

“I don’t know.”

“No?”

“I mean— What are you asking?”

“You’ve had several opportunities to take her down, as it were. She’d be safely locked away now and we wouldn’t have to worry about her…enterprises. By the way, I forgot to tell you, Inspector Lestrade informed me he has every reason to believe Moriarty was in London whilst we were there. She didn’t contact you?”

Joan’s immediate reaction was disappointment that Moriarty had not attempted a meeting. The second was frustration–with herself, and with the willful feelings she couldn’t understand or want.

“No,” she said, annoyed, too, with Sherlock’s prying, his mistrust. “I would have told you. I have told you every time. And that’s bullshit. You don’t forget anything.”

“Fair enough,” he said, nodding at the painting. “You’ll keep it, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

—

They began to arrive a few weeks after _Venus and Cupid_.

Books on art and art history. On technique. Artist biographies. Entire volumes on the Renaissance. Her studies with Sherlock meant Joan was familiar with some. Others were new. She stayed up nights thumbing through them; each time one arrived Sherlock pursed his lips and asked, “Is there a message?” Invariably, the answer was no.

Until the night a slog through Janson’s _History of Art_ revealed penciled marginalia:

 _“How do you know but every bird_  
that cuts the airy way  
is an immense world of delight,   
closed by your senses five?”

“She’s trying very hard,” Sherlock said, when Joan showed it to him. She had vacillated about that, had wondered whether it was something she wanted to keep private, but then she’d remembered Moriarty’s words about secret correspondence and her blood had run cold with the momentary thrill of it. How had she let things go so far?

“Blake,” Joan murmured.

“ _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ ,” Sherlock countered, astonished. “And there’s been no other contact? She hasn’t tried– Well, there’ve been no calls?”

“None.”

“But you’ll tell me if she does call? Whatever it is she’s about, Watson, surely it’s of the most devious nature. You’re not to trust her. You wouldn’t, would you?”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Because she’s sending you books and art and— and poetry! Because she’s clever and beautiful and cruel, Joan, and you must know you’re a target, that you’re owed punishment for having captured her.”

Joan swallowed and shook her head as she thought of all of the conversations they had had about Moriarty. How many of them had ended with Sherlock’s none too reassuring, “If she’d wanted to harm either of us, she could have by now. There’s nothing to stop her except her own desire to keep us whole.”

“She could have,” Joan said, echoing his words now. “She could have done it so many times, Sherlock, and in so many ways.”

“Not like this. Never like this,” he replied, his jaw twitching, his gaze hard. “Promise you’ll tell me when she attempts further contact.”

And what could Joan say?

“I told you. I will.”


	14. Primum Non Nocere

A scenario out of the past: Joan, walking along 7th Avenue, toward Central Park, when a parked sedan’s door opened in front of her. There was no thug to forcibly usher her inside this time, just a voice beckoning.

“Watson,” it said. “Please get in.”

A heartbeat’s hesitation later, Joan did, bending to peer inside before she entered the vehicle. She didn’t close the door but the driver did, and before she could protest they were pulling into traffic.

There was Moriarty—elegant, beautiful, poised. _Evil criminal mastermind_ , Joan thought, and that she needed any sort of reminder was alarming.

Moriarty sat primly, legs crossed, hands on her lap. Her skirt hitched just above the knee, which Joan stared at for an inordinate amount of time. Noticed she was doing so only when Moriarty spoke:

“You’re looking well.”

Joan met Moriarty’s open gaze, searched her face for something sinister. All that she found was a hungry smile.

“So are you,” she replied, and almost flinched at her own automatic flirtation. She held back a scowl as she opted to look out the window instead of at Moriarty, who remained viciously pretty. Traffic was slow. “For a fugitive.”

“Oh? For a fugitive?”

“Modesty doesn’t suit you,” Joan said. “Am I being kidnapped?”

“Would you like to be?”

There was a glint of amusement in Moriarty’s eyes that infuriated Joan, but just as she was preparing a cutting response, Moriarty pulled something from her purse, dangled it from her fingers.

A blindfold.

Joan panicked, groped blindly for the door handle. They were going slowly enough, and she thought, in a fit of dread, that any injury would be minimal.

“Pull over.”

“We could do that,” Moriarty replied, in an even, maddening drawl. “Or you could admit you’re terribly curious.”

There was, in a shallow place that could easily be reached, the dismaying urge to give in, to allow this person, this objectively _bad_ person, to navigate, to drop them into the heart of nothingness. Joan’s better angels screamed at her but her limbic brain craved a resolution. This was Moriarty; Moriarty, who had become an omnipresent specter. There and not there. Memory and reality. A dream-figment Joan had kissed; killed; fucked. 

The blindfold was spread out between them, an invitation. A _challenge_.

“I can’t,” Joan said, staring at it to keep from looking at anything else.

“But you want to.”

Joan made the mistake of looking up. She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t speak. There was a strange pleading in Moriarty’s eyes.

“I only offer an evening’s adventure.”

“That’s not true,” Joan replied, finding her voice. “You know what’s involved here, and that there’s nothing safe or easy about accepting one of your overtures.”

“Who wants safe and easy? Safe and easy bring no returns,” Moriarty spat back. She lowered the partition glass and told the driver to turn the car around. It wasn’t long before they were back where they had started.

Joan stared at the seat, at her feet, at her hands, but she felt Moriarty’s stare: “Why don’t you admit what this is? I am flattered, weirdly flattered, by your interest. You’re—intrigued. You’ve been intrigued for a while, and now you want to take the mystery out of it. But that’s not how I operate and you— You are you.”

Moriarty’s nose wrinkled when she sneered.

“I’ve made it quite clear that I want you, Watson, but if you think I do things just to get them over with, you’ve learned nothing about me.”

“And how would I learn anything about you? Anything real? You flit in and out of my life—”

“I run a multinational enterprise and I am, as you so often like to point out, a fugitive. And I am a wicked woman, am I not? Is that the issue? Are you afraid I’ll tarnish your sense of right and wrong?” She leaned across the seat and opened the door. When she sat back, Joan looked at her, at the way her mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “I am ever so gratified by your being _flattered_ , Joan Watson.”

Joan was going to leave. She was going to leave without looking back, but something rash and desperate compelled her to close the door.

“Yes,“ she said, angry, afraid, reckless, “you kill people for a living, and you shattered my friend’s life, so when you ask me to play a game with you, I am insulted that you would think I’m that stupid.”

Moriarty’s jaw clenched just before she schooled her face into blankness.

“Then leave,” she said.

 _Primum non nocere_. The first and only thing Joan thought in the moment before she reached for Moriarty. Before she held her face and drew her in for a hard kiss that seemed to burn with mutual frustration. And it would haunt Joan as she jerked away to blindly make her escape because in the space between finding pavement and the door closing between them, Moriarty’s mask fell away, and her face went soft.

Exposed.


	15. The Key

Joan was washing lettuce for a salad when the doorbell rang.

“Are you expecting someone?” she asked her mother, who was busy taking a roast out of the oven. Mary Watson set it on the counter, took off her oven mitts.

“Not a soul,” she replied, shrugging as she left the kitchen.

The apartment wasn’t so large that Joan couldn’t hear the faint sound of conversation drifting over from the front door.

“Hello, you must be Mary?”

“I am, yes. I’m sorry, do I know—?”

“Oh, geez, it’s my fault. I’m the one who’s sorry. Joan invited me to dinner, but I think I must’ve confused her because I never confirmed one way or the other. I’m so scatter-brained sometimes.” A pause. “I’m Irene, Joan’s…friend.”

As soon as Joan heard the voice, she stopped moving. Cold water ran over her fingers, and she squeezed the lettuce, ripped it to shreds. Moriarty was using her put-on American accent, but there was no mistaking her voice.

Joan didn’t know what to think. She wasn’t even angry; she was stunned.

_Irene._

“Joanie!”

Joan walked towards her mother’s voice without thinking, had to return to the sink to shut off the water. Wiped her hands on the back of her skirt as she rounded the corner, past the living room…

Her first thought was that Moriarty looked unimaginably…normal. Pretty, but normal in a casual top, jeans, boots; loose hair, minimal makeup. Smiling and devoid of her usual trappings, she seemed harmless. She held Mary’s hand between her own.

“Joanie,” her mother said. “You didn’t tell me you’d invited a friend.”

Joan stared at Moriarty a second longer before turning her attention back to her mother and attempting a smile of her own. “I didn’t think she was coming,” she replied. “It’s been hard to pin her down. I wasn’t even sure she’d be in New York.”

“It’s true,” Moriarty added, scrunching her nose in a self-deprecating gesture. “I’m out of town constantly on business.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a corporate vulture, I’m afraid. Have you ever seen that George Clooney movie where he travels from company to company firing people? That’s me.”

“Oh.” Joan’s mother didn’t bother hiding her distaste. “I’m sorry, dear, but that sounds awful.”

“It is. Honestly, some days I have a hard time putting up with myself.”

“Well, come in, please. I imagine you rarely get a home-cooked meal, what with all your travel.”

Moriarty smiled.

“Almost never. And thanks so much for your hospitality. I wouldn’t expect any less from Joan’s mother. Honestly, when you opened the door, I was sure you were maybe a slightly older sister I’d never heard about.”

Mary laughed warmly. Joan tried not to roll her eyes.

—

“This is wonderful. Truly.”

“Thank you, Irene. Tell me—where did you and Joanie meet?”

“My— Um, I shouldn’t say, exactly, but someone I know is an addict, and Joan was instrumental in his recovery. We met under difficult circumstances, but we’ve since become…rather close. Right, Joan?”

Joan nodded wanly.

Moriarty smiled at her.

She said, “I’d hate to bother you, but I need to use the little girl’s room. Would you mind showing me the way?”

“Not at all.”

Moriarty followed her and as they walked out of sight of the dining room, touched Joan’s back. Joan flinched. “Don’t,” she whispered, and Moriarty’s hand fell away.

As soon as they were inside the bathroom, Joan closed the door, whirled on Moriarty and asked, her voice low but firm, “What are you doing?”

“I’m going away,” Moriarty said, in her natural accent. “I thought I’d drop in on you one last time.”

“ _Here_?”

“It seemed expedient. And I like your mother.”

Joan covered her face for a moment. She paused. Took a breath. “What I did was wrong.”

“Kissing me?”

“Not just that. Letting myself get wrapped up in you, in your games. I liked the gifts, I liked the idea of running into you. I’ve liked being with you, and I never thought I would. I didn’t think it was possible.”

Moriarty gave her a long look before glancing away and reaching into her pocket.

“This is for you,” she said, pressing a tiny, silver key into the palm of Joan’s hand.

“A key? What for? What does it open?”

“You like detective work, you sort that out.” Moriarty leaned against the bathroom counter; crossed her arms; dipped her head so that her hair was covering her face. “Now you must tell me not to come to you again. If you don’t want me to, you must say it. And I know you won’t believe it, but I’ll respect your wishes. I can disappear completely.” She looked up, pushed her hair behind her ear. Smiled so sweetly Joan thought she looked like a different person entirely. “Sherlock will be so very pleased.”

Joan’s throat felt tight. She knew what she should have said immediately. She knew what was right. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the right thing. Not then, not being as close to Moriarty as she was. They stared at one another and she couldn’t even break that.

“I don’t want you to disappear completely,” she said instead.

“I am sorry,” Moriarty replied gently. “That you like me.” And then she leaned over so that their lips touched briefly. Sighed against Joan’s mouth. “Can’t be easy, darling.”

Joan kept her eyes closed.

“No,” she said. “It isn’t easy at all.”

They kissed again. Joan wondered what her mother thought was taking them so long, but it was a fleeting thing that drifted out of her mind as soon as Moriarty’s tongue slipped into her mouth. She didn’t think of Sherlock at all, not in that moment. He would only appear later, much later, when she felt the guilt of it all over again, eyes wide open, the moment replaying itself as she hugged her pillow and squeezed Moriarty’s key between her fingers.


	16. [Interlude #1]

Tobias Braun ran through Tiergarten three times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. This day, a Wednesday, he began his run late in the evening. By the time he reached the bench on which Jamie waited, it was past eight; before she saw him coming around the bend, impatience began crawling up her throat.

As soon as he appeared, she reached into her trenchcoat pocket. Pulled out a leash. Whistled, called out to an imaginary terrier. Stood firmly in the centre of the jogging path: “Udo! Udo!”

Like any good citizen (he was not a good citizen, but he was a lover of animals; he had a foundation, was vegan), Tobias Braun stopped to assist a fellow Berliner in need.

“You’ve lost your dog?” he asked.

“He slipped right out of his harness,” she said, as embarrassed as she could be. “Would you mind helping me find him? If you’re in a hurry—“

Braun looked at his watch. “Not at all. I would be happy to help you. I’m Tobias, by the way.”

“Mary.”

They walked together for nearly twenty minutes, calling for the dog. Jamie walked steadily in front of Braun, leading him nearer to the edge of the park until they were within a few feet of her car.

“If he’s wandered into traffic, he’s done for, I’m afraid,” Braun said. He looked at his watch again, made a face that said he regretted this ever so much, but, “I do think it’s time for me to go, Mary.”

“Yes,” Jamie agreed, reaching into the back of her waistband for her weapon. “Get into the car, please.”

Braun put up his hands; Jamie ordered him to lower them, repeated, now in English: “Into the car, Mr. Braun. We’ve a short trip to take.”

He frowned, confused, before his face lit up with recognition. “You,” he said, growing pale, paler.

“Me.”

—

Braun had fought. She hadn’t expected he would fight. She had wanted him to see her face, wanted him to know that trying to have her killed had been his costliest mistake. Unfortunately, forcing him off the bridge had been a miscalculation. “Jump or be shot,” she’d told him. “Perhaps you’ll survive the fall.” She hadn’t anticipated he would try to take her down with him. She’d shot before he reached her, but he managed to wrap his big arms around her anyway; managed to fall back in an attempt to go off the edge. Her bodyguard had quickly managed the situation, but by then she was shaken, her clothes stained with Braun’s blood. She’d shot him twice more before ordering him tossed off the bridge.

Now she was in Rotterdam. Freshly showered. Wired. Frustrated. She picked up her phone; popped the back; switched the SIM. Dialed the number from memory.

Joan answered in two rings.

“It’s me,” Jamie said.

“Um.” Sounds became momentarily muffled. Joan, no doubt, was holding the speaker to her chest, explaining to whomever that she would have to take the call. To Sherlock, most likely.

After a minute: “Yes?”

She sounded breathless, Joan did. Jamie liked that.

“Busy?”

“I just needed to go outside.”

“Where are you?”

“A crime scene.”

“Lovely.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing, I just…” _Wanted to hear your voice? How insipid._ “Have you figured out the key?”

“Swiss bank, right? A safety deposit box. Since I won’t be heading out to Geneva anytime soon, I don’t think I’ll find out.”

“You should. It’s wonderful this time of year. The skiing—“

“Are you all right?”

Christ, had she bollocksed it up?

“Yes, fine. Why do you ask?”

“You sound… I don’t know…”

“What are you wearing?” Jamie interrupted, rubbing the bridge of her nose. A headache was building behind her left eye. When she drew her hand back, she noticed she’d missed some blood under one fingernail. She held back a sigh.

Meanwhile, Joan laughed. It was a hard, rough laugh in Jamie’s ear. She liked that, too.

“ _I’m at a crime scene._ ”

“Fine. Never mind. If you won’t play along, there’s nothing to be done, is there? I’ll be in New York soon, I think. In a few weeks, possibly. I’d like to see you.”

“I don’t know.”

“ _Joan._ ”

“ _Jamie.”_

“I like when you call me Jamie.”

Joan went quiet, as though she had been caught doing something forbidden. It was another moment before she broke her silence.

“I have to get back," she said. "He’ll wonder.”

“He’ll ask questions,” Jamie said.

“Without a doubt.”

“And what will you tell him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you see me?”

Another long pause. Sirens blaring in the distance.

“Yes.”

Jamie hung up. Tossed the phone across the bed. Stared at the ceiling until sleep claimed her.

She dreamt of the Brooklyn Bridge.


	17. [Interlude #2]

She woke with a start. Turned over. Glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Five in the morning. She lay on her back, closed her eyes. Waited. But, no, her mind was buzzing and there would be no more sleep.  
  
She showered. Dressed in her painting clothes—old, black trousers; a white shirt; the same smock she’d been using for nearly a decade. Went, barefoot, to the kitchen where she found Mathilde reading the newspaper. She was a winter hire and still getting used to Jamie’s odd hours.  
  
"Miss, oh, pardon. Would you like breakfast now?"  
  
"No, thank you. I’m just making tea."  
  
"I could make that for you, if you’d like."  
  
"That’s all right. Actually, take the day for yourself, Mathilde. I won’t be needing you."  
  
"But your meals—"  
  
"I can manage."  
  
"Are you certain?"  
  
"Quite."  
  
Mathilde retreated quickly and without further fuss.  
  
Jamie filled a kettle, looked out of the large window over the sink. Beyond falling snow, the Alps loomed enormous and looked, in that light, like a Turner landscape.  
  
The house itself, which she rented from an associate at an exorbitant rate, clashed with its surroundings. It was modern almost to a fault—marble and metal and strict, hard lines. She didn’t like it, but she could live with it for a few months.  
  
The kettle went on the stove, and as she waited for the water to boil, she calculated the time in New York. Late, but not terribly late. Midnight.  
  
She shook thoughts of Watson away. Poured water into a pot. Steeped a bag of black tea.  
  
The cup she made followed her into the room she had transformed into her studio. A painting she’d been working on for weeks waited.  
  
She drank her tea. Sat on a stool in front of the easel. Stared. After five minutes, she stood up, wandered away from her workspace, stood in front of an enormous window with a perfect view of the Eiger.  
  
For a while, she resisted reaching into her pocket for her phone. Resisted switching the SIM. Resisted dialing the number. It was seven-thirty by then. One-thirty New York time.  
  
She rang Watson.  
  
Who didn’t answer. Not for a while. Not until, Jamie presumed, her mobile woke her.  
  
"Hello?" Sleepy-voiced Watson. The sound of a blanket rubbing against the phone.  
  
"I woke you."  
  
"Mm. Yes."  
  
"Alone?"  
  
"Just me."  
  
"I’m sorry I woke you."  
  
"No, you’re not, but it’s fine. I’m used to it, anyway. So, where are you?"  
  
"It’s cold."  
  
"Ah. Northern Hemisphere. Up high?"  
  
"Yes, quite high. It’s snowing."  
  
"Why did you call, Jamie?"  
  
"I was thinking of you. I’ve got this painting I’m working on. It’s a cityscape. A view of the Brooklyn Bridge from above."  
  
"The Brooklyn Bridge? That seems prosaic. For you, I mean."  
  
"I had a dream about it I’m attempting to exorcise."  
  
"What happens in the dream?"  
  
"I fall."  
  
Joan didn’t say anything about that. For a few moments, they were both quiet.  
  
"So, I was thinking of you," Jamie repeated. "I was thinking you were in bed. I was thinking that next time I’m in New York—"  
  
"You said that three months ago."  
  
"Has it been so very long? Plans fell through. It isn’t as easy to come and go as it seems. Anyhow."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I thought that perhaps you've missed hearing from me." A pause. Was Joan trying to decide what she should admit to? What to deny? Jamie decided she didn't want to hear either response. She continued, "Or maybe, in my absence, I've made it easy to forget."  
  
"About you?" Joan laughed. "That doesn't seem possible."  
  
"Is that a compliment, Watson? How very kind of you."  
  
"Not a compliment. A fact. Even if I wanted to--"  
  
"But you don't. And now I'm remembering that you're in bed."  
  
"I am, yes."  
  
"I once asked if you ever think of me there, in bed with you. I believe you hung up the phone without answering my question."  
  
"Did I?"  
  
"Hm. Why did you?"  
  
"I was angry."  
  
"Angry at the mere suggestion...?"  
  
"Angry that I did. That I had that feeling at all, and that you knew."  
  
"No, I didn't. How could I when you were so good at being angry with me? Are you still?"  
  
"Yes, sometimes. Sometimes I'm only angry at myself, for letting it get this far."  
  
"We haven't even begun, Watson."  
  
"How can that be true?"  
  
"Will you hang up on me now, if I tell you that I want you?"  
  
"...You've told me that."  
  
"That I'd like to hear what it would be like to have you?"  
  
A pause. A very long pause. Joan clearing her throat; Jamie holding her phone tightly, waiting. What was this desire? Where had it come from, and why was it impossible to be rid of it?  
  
"That’s— I can’t."  
  
"Don’t talk. Just... do. None of that awkward pretending. I only want to hear you."  
  
"I—"  
  
"Come now, Watson. You’re no prude."  
  
"How do you know that?"  
  
"Prudes don’t kiss people like me. Not the way you have. Tell me you’ve got your hand down your pants."  
  
"No, I…" A sound, like the phone shifting against something. A sigh. "Maybe."  
  
Jamie smiled.  
  
"You’re making me work for it," she said.  
  
"Not really, but what good is it if it’s... easy?"  
  
There was another long moment of silence. Silence on Jamie’s part, anyway. On the other end of the line, Joan’s breathing was gradually becoming unsteady. The first time she heard what sounded like her breath catching, Jamie closed her eyes, pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the window.  
  
"I told you once," she said, murmuring quietly as she strained to hear Joan’s every sound, "about a girl I met in Florence. I remember thinking—I was very young—that I would die if I couldn’t have her. It was the first time I’d felt the kind of desire that seems completely irrational in hindsight. She was shy; she’d never been with a woman… Have you?"  
  
Joan’s yes was strangled.  
  
Jamie squeezed her phone. Her mouth was dry.  
  
"Go on," Joan said.  
  
"Would you like to hear about it? We spent the weekend in my hotel room. I showed her everything I knew, and I was never hungry for anything but her. I could have spent hours tasting her. Do you want me to—?"  
  
" _Yes_."  
  
A whimper. A series of them. Soft and hard to hear. But Jamie strained to catch them.  
  
And then Joan made a sound that was unmistakable, a sound that settled between Jamie’s legs. She kept her forehead to the window, pressed her hand against the glass as she swallowed thickly.  
  
"Darling," she whispered.  
  
Moments later, when Joan finally spoke, her voice was still rough.  
  
"What happened to the girl?"  
  
"The girl? No idea. I didn’t see her again. I was daily practicing my reproductions then, and a few months after our encounter I sent her a miniature of Tintoretto’s Danaë."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I wanted her to have something beautiful."  
  
"So she would think of you?"  
  
"Why, Watson, do you think I’m beautiful?"  
  
Soft laughter, followed by a sigh. "Don’t ask me that. I’ve got my guard down. I might be honest."  
  
"I’ve tried to paint you, but I keep thinking I’m misremembering your face."  
  
"Come and see me, then."  
  
Jamie wanted to. She wanted to drop the phone and head straight for the airport, consequences be damned.  
  
Instead, she said, "Soon, darling," and hung up. Put the phone in her pocket.  
  
Returned to the easel…


	18. [Interlude #3]

The man on the other side of the table was Martin Cook. Rather, that’s what he called himself. In her line of work, aliases were as common as they were in spycraft. In reality, what she did wasn’t too dissimilar from what MI6 was up to—mucking up regimes, assassinating inconvenient people. What passed for acceptable depended on where the money flowed. In her case, straight into a Swiss bank account. Several Swiss bank accounts. One of her accounts held well over a billion dollars. It was, most unfortunately, frozen.

“Can you do it?” Cook asked. He was a Scouser, a scrapper. A  _survivor_. She’d dealt with him several times and whoever his employer was had always compensated her fairly. The amount he offered now was ludicrous.

“We’ve always seen eye-to-eye, Mr. Cook. Tell me, when exactly do you think I became an assassin-for-hire?”

“You need the money, don’t you?”

“No.”

“But you’ve been made, haven’t you?”

She smiled at him.

“Listen to me. I am a very busy woman, Martin. You can’t bring me these things, or I’ll think you’re having a laugh at my expense. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I deal with you directly because I like you, but any one of my lieutenant’s could have told you–“

“Pardon, with all due respect. My employer was sure you wouldn’t mind this one as it’s mutually beneficial. He could hire any thug off the street, but you’ve got history with this bloke.”

Jamie sat back, frowning. “How d’you mean?”

“My employer’s got business in America, ma'am, and this character, this  _detective_ and his lady partner have fucked up— Pardon me, miss,  _derailed_ one of my employer’s operations. And we know that, given how Moriarty was exposed and all, that’s put a damper on your business as well.”

Jamie took a steadying breath as white-hot rage filled her.

“Will you kill ‘em?”


	19. [Interlude #4]

Joan’s phone went straight to voicemail.

Why in the hell would her mobile be switched off? What time was it in New York? Jamie couldn’t, in that moment, remember the calculation. She bent over Martin Cook’s dead body, his lifeless eyes staring up at her. “Sorry, old boy,” she said, rifling through his pockets. A wallet, a passport, two phones. She went through them both, found that he had only dialed and received calls from one number on his Blackberry.

“Here,” she said, holding the phone up for Lionel, one of her lieutenants.  He was giving her a strange look; no doubt he was wondering how she could’ve just shot Mr. Cook between the eyes during what seemed like an amicable business meeting. “Have someone put a trace on that number. Get a name, if possible.” She opened the passport. It looked legitimate. She knew forgeries; knew even the most sophisticated forgeries. Her own passports were the best available on the black market. This was real. Martin Cook, it read, and his face, a good ten years younger, looked back with little more life than in its current state. Cook he’d truly been, then. How unimaginative. “Before you go, take the body. I’m done with it.”

–

An hour later, Joan finally picked up.

“Where have you been?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you home?”

“What’s going on?”

“Don’t ask questions. Answer me: are you home?”

“No, I’m–  _Tell me what’s going on_.”

“You’re not to go back to Sherlock’s—“

“ _Jamie_ , what—“

“Jamie?”

Sherlock, in the background, was suddenly very loud in his questioning. Jamie’s jaw clenched tightly.

“Moriarty!”

He’d taken the phone from Joan.

“Yes,” she said. “And before you say anything else, _listen_. You’ve once again stepped on important toes, haven’t you, Sherlock? I’m afraid there’s a price on your head, and while I’ve just politely declined the offer to kill you, there’s no doubt someone else will be arriving at your door shortly. It’s not just you they’re after, do you understand?”

Sherlock was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Watson, as well?”

“She’s working with you, isn’t she? She’s your partner, and so she gets her share of the blame. You’ve got to find a new place to stay.”

“No, that’s wholly unacceptable.”

“Did you hear what I’ve just told you?”

“I’m sorry, in what universe is it that I should find anything you say trustworthy?”

“Don’t be an arse. You’ve recently uncovered some sort of nutritional supplement pyramid scheme, haven’t you? A poor immigrant, a woman with four children, who’d invested all of her savings into this vitamin business only to be defrauded, she came to you with her sob story and you helped her.”

“So what? You no doubt read that in the newspaper.”

“Of course I did, and I’m telling you the man behind that scheme is quite upset you’ve interrupted a not insubstantial cash flow to his business.”

“The man behind that scheme is awaiting trial, as you should be.”

“The man in prison is disposable, a shill. You should know that, Sherlock.”

He was quiet again.

“Fine, then. Thanks for the warning.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What do you care?”

“I want to know you’ll take the necessary precautions.”

“We will take the necessary precautions.”

He hung up.

She stared at her phone. Considered dialing back. Didn’t because she knew he would only answer again.

She called, instead, one of her men in New York, gave him the address to Sherlock’s brownstone. “I need men there. They’ll likely get a security detail from NYPD; try and get one of ours in there. Do this yourself. If a mistake is made, it’ll be on you.”

Then she rang Lionel.

“I need a flight out immediately. Ready the plane.”


	20. [Interlude #5]

She was already in Mr. Remarque’s office by the time he arrived for work the next morning. He was head of a very legitimate business; well-respected. A family man with close ties to several MPs. It was said he himself was considering a run for Parliament.

“What are you doing here? Who let you in?”

“I let myself in,” she replied. She sat in his chair, an expensive chair made for fat old men with too much money, too much power. “Sit down. Please.”

He reached for his phone, no doubt to alert security. She held up her pistol so he would think better of it. He looked one moment away from wetting his pants.

“What do you want? Money?”

She smiled. “Are you missing a Mr. Cook?” she asked. “Perhaps you’re wondering where he’s been these last few days? Why he hasn’t answered any of your calls, or returned your messages? Martin was reliable, was he not?”

Remarque’s hand slowly rose to his throat; he gripped his tie, his face ashen.

He tried. He did try: “I don’t know who that is.”

“I am Moriarty,” she said. “But you know that, don’t you? You’ve asked what it is that I want, and I’ll tell you, Mr. Remarque. Martin Cook came to me with a proposal.”

“Y-yes.”

“And you are familiar with that proposal, correct? It was you who sent him?”

He nodded as he loosened his tie and finally decided to take her up on the offer to sit down.

“Have you reached out to anyone else regarding this… transaction? I don’t mean personally, of course, but a man such as yourself has more than one Martin Cook in his employ.”

“When Martin failed to contact me, I assumed… I assumed _correctly_ that he would not be contacting me ever again, that something had gone wrong during his meeting with you. So last night I extended an offer to a man, an Australian man who works in America— He is not what you are, he is _less_ than you are, but he would get the job done. Because of your situation, because of our mutual antipathy for _that detective_ and his cohort, I assumed you would want the job. I also assumed you would need money. It seems I erred.”

“What’s the man’s name?”

“The Australian? His name is Fitzroy. Humbert Fitzroy. There’s still a deal to be made here. For you, I mean. We’ve done business together for many years. Surely that means something?”

Jamie did not smile. “Of course,” she said. “Was there another, or did Fitzroy accept your proposal?”

“He accepted.”

“Very well.”

She shot Remarque. She fired three times, until she was certain he was dead. Then, she adjusted her wig, donned large, dark glasses, and exited the building.

She rang Lionel.

“Do you know of Humbert Fitzroy?”

“Yes, actually. A hitman based in New York. He’s quite good.”

“Do we have a photograph?”

“No. We’ve never dealt with him directly. I only know him by reputation.”

“Then I need you to get one, and I need you to find out how we can contact him. Go through Remarque’s secondary financial transactions. See if he’s made a substantial transfer in the last few hours. If he hasn’t, there may be a way to sort this out the easy way.”

“Will you be going to New York?”

“Yes. Immediately.”

—

She called Joan from the plane.

“Are you alone?”

“I’m in my room. There are police officers downstairs. There are patrol cars outside. But, yes, I’m alone.”

“You’re being careful, then?”

“I haven’t left the house.”

“Good. I have some information. The man who’s coming for you is called Humbert Fitzroy. I assume that’s not his real name, but he’s an Australian national, and a hitman who is well-known in…certain circles. My people are working on acquiring some sort of photograph, or a description. When we have anything, it will be faxed to Sherlock’s.”

“And here I’ve made fun of him for having something as antiquated as a fax machine… Do you need the number?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Of course you do,” Joan said with a dry laugh. “Listen, I just, I wanted to thank you.”

“No need. How colorless the world would be without you and Sherlock in it.”

“Despite our differences?”

“Despite. Because of. Have your pick, Watson.”

“Well, thanks, anyway.”

“You’re welcome. And, Joan?”

“Yes?”

“Keep clear of the windows.”


	21. [Interlude #6]

“Drive. Take the necessary precautions; and I’ll let you know when we’ve got a destination.”

The partition went up and, for the first time in many months, Jamie was alone with Joan Watson.

“How did you get away?” she asked.

“Sherlock hasn’t really slept since this started, so he finally just…crashed. I told one of the officers I had to meet a friend, that I’d be fine. He seemed wary, but there wasn’t much he could do to keep me there.”

“And why were you not wary? You don’t suddenly trust me, do you, Watson?”

Watson rolled her eyes as she turned to look out the window. “At this point, trust has taken on a complexity of meaning I’d rather not examine too closely, if you don’t mind.  Not right now.”

“Anyway, it’s nice to see you.”

Watson turned to look at her again. There was a trace of a smile upon her lips.  “I’d ask what you’ve been up to,” she said, looking out the window again, clutching the purse on her lap. “But I’m sure I’m better off not knowing.”

“Trade secrets,” Jamie replied. “Though I’m loath to admit it, my recent legal problems have made working…difficult.”

“Can’t say that I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No, I wouldn’t imagine you would be,” Jamie replied, gazing intently at Watson who seemed to be adamant about not looking back. “Would you care to go to my hotel room?”

Watson’s fingers curled more tightly around her purse strap.

“Ah, I’d better not. I should be back, before…”

“Before he notices? He’ll notice regardless. It’s what he does.”

“That’s not—”

“Would you prefer if we went back, then? Would that assuage your guilt?”

Joan turned sharply, said, “You don’t see everything.”

“Don’t I?” Jamie asked. “But you’re right, actually. I don’t. Figuring you out has become a fascinating pursuit.”

“Back to games?” Watson said, releasing something between a scoff and a laugh.

“I’m at your command, Watson. Tell me what you want me to do.”  Jamie sat back, put her arms back against the seat. Smiled diffidently.

“At my command? That’s… that’s funny.”

“You don’t believe me?” 

“No.”

Jamie picked up her clutch. Opened it. Produced a set of handcuffs. Watson’s eyes widened; Jamie wondered if she thought they were for her. Now that _would_ be interesting…

She popped one side on her own wrist, tightened it so that Watson would hear the satisfying rasp of the rivet.  

Watson’s mouth opened, her eyes narrowed.

“What are you doing?”

“Isn't this what you want?” She snapped the other side around her free wrist. Held out her hands for Watson’s inspection. “You can tighten them, if you’d like.”

Joan crossed her arms and sat back. “I don’t believe you. You have the key.”

“Actually, you’ve got it.”

Watson’s hand flew to her chest. She reached under her shirt and pulled out her chain. Dangling from it was the small, silver key Jamie had given her.

“How did you know?”

“I saw its outline under your top.”

“This is…” Joan shook her head. Put her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. She remained that way for a long time.

Jamie waited. Let it play out.

It took an exceedingly long time for Joan to drop her hands.

“Think of it this way: you can do with me whatever you’d like, darling.”

Watson responded by grabbing the handcuff link and pulling so roughly, that the strands tightened further, digging painfully into Jamie’s wrist bone. And then Joan climbed onto her lap, kissed her hard, so that their mouths were pressed together so tightly Jamie could feel teeth against her lips. Fingers were in her hair, tangling, tugging almost cruelly while they ravaged each other’s mouths.  Heart pounding with excitement, Jamie attempted, more than once, to touch, to grab, forgetting the cuffs each time.

“Unlock me,” she murmured, breaking the kiss so that she could drag her lips along Joan’s throat. She nipped at her collarbone. Nuzzled her breast.

“No.”

That was a surprise. The tone in Joan’s voice which brooked no argument, which made Jamie feel a stunning desperation, of a sort she hadn’t known in a very long time. She felt impotent as she opened her mouth to Joan’s breast, irritated by the clothes in her way, and her inability to remove them. By the way the game had suddenly turned.

Then, Joan tugged at her hair so that her head snapped back, and kissed her. They kissed like that for a long time, with Joan’s hips rolling into her, seeking the pressure of it while Jamie pleaded once more to be unfettered.

“Shut up.”

That might have been enough to bring Jamie out of it, to jolt her into awareness, but Joan whimpered the words as she reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, as reached back and unhooked her bra. As flesh was bared, Jamie took advantage, kissing the freckles that spanned Joan’s chest, the valley between her breasts. Taking a nipple into her mouth she sucked gently, carefully until Joan arched her back and swayed, her breathing fast and uneven. 

And, still, Jamie’s hands remained bound.

Remained bound when Joan moved off her lap and sat back where she’d been, leaning into the corner of the seat as she reached under her skirt and shimmied out of her underwear. She stared at Jamie as she did this, stared as she let her knees fall apart, and waited.

Jamie complied. Wondered, as she fell awkwardly to her knees on the car floor, whether this was part of the pleasure of it. Whether Joan liked seeing her this way. The idea of it sent her into a tailspin. She crawled to her and before Joan could even do the decent thing and raise the skirt, Jamie pressed her face into her waiting lap. Joan made some animal noise, some choked moan, as Jamie finally found her, finally tasted her, delicately at first, and then with increasing hunger as her breathing grew frantic; as her hands wound themselves through Jamie’s hair and her hips rose off of the seat, undulating like waves, rising and falling, rising and falling, until her legs trembled and Jamie’s jaw ached. Until her tremulous breathing stopped and the only sound she made was that of breaking apart entirely. Jamie’s movements slowed but didn’t stop until Joan pushed at her shoulder with a gentle hand. “No more, please,” she said, and Jamie complied.

She fell back against the opposite seat, her cuffed hands to her mouth as she stared at Joan, who sat splayed with the full indolence of orgasm. Knees apart. Hair wild. Cheeks flushed. Lips kiss-bruised. She looked resplendent. 

Like a queen upon her throne.


	22. Game Theory

Games could be won. This? This wasn’t a game, and it could not be won. Whatever it was they were doing, from this point forward there would be no going back. Whatever happened, this, _this_ , was a crossed line, a boundary annihilated.  


Of course, Joan realized all of this too late. Realized it only in the aftermath. While she was pulling the chain over her head and bending to unlock Moriarty ’s handcuffs. While Moriarty slid back up next to her and they gazed at one another, their cheeks to the car seat, their foreheads nearly touching. It was a sick, hollow feeling, and Joan could only liken it to the shame the powerfully addicted feel even in the middle of a high. And she  _was_ in the middle of it, because even as her stomach twisted into knots, she stared at Moriarty , stared at her lips, met her half way. They stayed that way, connected by a series of lazy kisses, until the car reached the brownstone. Then, and only then, did they part.

“How do I look?” Joan asked, smoothing down her hair.

Moriarty smiled. “A mess.” She rubbed her thumb across Joan’s mouth. “Lipstick,” she said,  palm out, and Joan took it out of her purse, handed it over. Moriarty  reapplied it for her, and in that moment, beneath her intense scrutiny, Joan felt stupidly vulnerable.

“You’re beautiful,” Moriarty said, so matter-of-factly it almost didn’t register as a compliment.

“A work of art?” Joan asked, before she could bite her tongue.

But Moriarty didn’t seem to mind. She pressed her lips to Joan’s ear, whispered, “Better.”

“Better than—”

Moriarty leaned back, shook her head. “Don’t spoil it,” she warned, running her fingers through Joan’s hair, cupping the side of her face. “I’ll need to see you again. Preferably not in the back of a car.”

“I don’t know when that will be.”

“After Fitzroy? When it’s safe.”

“Sherlock’s going to suspect. It won’t be safe for  _you_ , Jamie.”

“You forget that I can take care of myself.”

“I don’t. I don’t forget, but you’re severely underestimating Sherlock.”

“I don’t think I am. Remember: he never caught me, darling,” Moriarty said. “That was you.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

Moriarty laughed. “Really? I don’t feel any which way about it. I was rather livid about it at the time, what with being about one billion dollars poorer, but I think I just proved I enjoy your company and harbor no… ill will. Let me ask you—how does it feel to know you've had me on my knees?”

Joan took in a hard breath. Shook her head. 

Moriarty didn’t press. She leaned in close, her lips almost touching Joan’s. Murmured, “I want to kiss you again, but I don’t want to ruin your lipstick.”

This time, it was Joan who closed the distance.


	23. Partial Witness

“I’m glad to see that you’re all right.”

Sherlock sat in his armchair, facing the door. He reminded Joan of a sitcom father waiting up for his truant child, ready to give out advice and the sort of punishment only television teenagers find reformative. Except Sherlock was a friend, and any instinct to rebel was tamped down by his genuine affection. That–and the hard knowledge that when it came to Moriarty, he was an expert.

“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning back against the wall, her arms behind her back. “I should have told you I was leaving, but—”

“But you thought you would return before I awoke. Officer Rich told me you’d gone out with a friend. I racked my brain, trying to think who that could be, who would be important enough to leave the house for, risking harm to both of you? And then it came to me that perhaps the person you were meeting was of the sort even this supposed Fitzroy would not dare approach. My suspicions were confirmed when you walked through the door,” he said, tapping the side of his nose. “She’s worn that perfume for as long as I’ve known her.”

Joan stared down at her feet. 

“I was going to tell you.”

“I don’t doubt that, Watson,” he said, sounding sincere. That sincerity cut to the quick. “Is an intervention in order?”

She looked up. Shook her head. 

“Of course not. I can manage this, Sherlock.”

His eyes widened. He tilted his head, as if he’d heard wrong. “Manage? Shall I list off the ways in which this situation cannot possibly be managed?”

“I’m sorry,” Joan repeated. “I know what this must look like. I know that it isn't—”

“Sane?” he interrupted. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“No.”

“If I were to deduce your condition—”

“My condition is I’m probably in over my head. You don’t have to tell me that.”

“If that’s what you want to call it. I thought we were agreed that this is folly?”

“We did, yes. And, I mean, I probably shouldn't have agreed to meet with her; that much I can admit. Look, I’m not…happy with myself.”

“No? You were smiling when you walked in. And, no, don’t apologize again; I can see that you want to, but there’s no need. It’s not for me to decide what you do with your life, Watson, but as a friend, my advice to you is to  _run_  from that woman. I don't know how she's insinuated herself into your life, but she is a liar, she is a  _murderer,_ and she is not to be trusted. Perhaps this is something you feel you must deal with on your own —I can respect that—but know that I will help you if need be. Always.”

His loyalty made everything worse. Joan felt like she was choking. She needed a shower. She needed to get out from under Sherlock’s gaze. She needed, most of all, to wash off Moriarty. 

She said the first, stupid thing that bubbled out:

“It’s not… She has a heart, Sherlock. She does love you.”

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. Of all that she could have said she had picked the worst. And, there, the look on his face was answer enough: 

_Oh, Joan, you fool._

 


	24. The Letter

Joan woke up without Sherlock’s prompting for the third day in a row. At six am she wandered downstairs, made herself some tea, and found him hunched over his computer, pecking at the keys.

“Morning.”

“Morning, Watson,” he said, preoccupied. “There’s something you should look at.” He pointed vaguely at a stack of books, atop which lay a single sheet of paper.

A photocopy. A picture, black and white and grainy, of a contorted body. A man, lying in a pool of blood that looked black on the fax. Only one word appeared scrawled beneath the picture: Fitzroy.

“Oh,” Joan said, simultaneously relieved and repulsed. “Jamie killed him.”

“ _Moriarty_ killed him. Or had him killed.”

“Right,” Joan replied.

“You have recently taken to calling her Jamie. The woman you deal with is Moriarty.”

“I just—"

“I understand. _Moriarty_ connotes too many things you would rather not dwell on.”

“Maybe,” she said, putting the fax back where she’d found it. “That could be true.”

Sherlock gave her a long look, a look of _mulling over_. When he pushed himself out of his chair, he did so with exaggerated effort. He went to the bookcase, ran his index finger over many spines until he found what he wanted. _Inferno._

He flipped it open. From the middle, he pulled a sheet of paper, folded in thirds, like a letter. Without looking at it, he held it out to Joan.

The first thing she noticed was the feminine script. _A woman wrote this_ , she thought, instantly. The words confirmed her deduction.

The letter itself was brief. It didn’t take long for Joan to read it twice. She scanned the words, her eyes lingering on the signature. _Ever yours_ , it read.

“Jamie,” Joan murmured. “She wrote to you from prison.”

“Around the time of the Kleinfelter affair,” he replied. “No doubt she was lonely, affected, as it were, by the penumbra of incarceration.”

Joan gave him the letter, and he stuck it back in the book; put the book back on the shelf.

“Thank you,” she said. “For sharing that. You didn’t have to.”

“I do believe quite strongly in redemption, Watson. I believe there are those who fall into the dark abyss and must be helped, must be fished out because climbing out alone is an impossibility. I confess that, even in my least cynical moments, I cannot conceive of Moriarty’s redemption. That is not because it is true that she is evil incarnate, but because I am blind to her. Do you understand?” She nodded and he continued, “That letter, for instance. Even in my post-love clarity I could not understand it. Here was Irene’s script. There Moriarty’s words. Here ‘ever yours,’ as though the woman had walked back into my life, risen from her grave. There, ‘Jamie Moriarty,’ a wholly new creature I could not begin to figure out. She is a chimera—the many trying to resolve themselves into the one. I don’t believe I have ever known her, or could ever know her. She remains an enigma, a puzzle too difficult to solve. But _you_ , Watson. It's possible that _you_ can.”

"How?"

"That's not for me to know. What I do know is that you have solved her before. You have bested her, discovered weaknesses even I never suspected she possessed. Perhaps—perhaps she will hand you the key?"


	25. Under the Brooklyn Bridge

“Would you meet with me? I’m leaving tonight and I’d like to see you now that the unpleasant business with Fitzroy is behind us.”

“Where?”

“You tell me. I’ll be in my car, waiting.”

—

Sure enough, just past Hillside Park: an idling black sedan.

The door opened just as Joan walked up to it. Moriarty poked her head out, smiled coolly.

“Joan Watson,” she said.

Joan didn’t miss a beat.

“ _Ever yours_ ,” she replied, as she got into the car and sat down, watching all the while Moriarty’s smile slip by degrees. “Or is that too intimate?”

“But how sweet.”

“Does it bother you that he showed me your letter?”

“Is that what happened? Not at all. I am rather touched that he's kept them.”

_Them_. More than one. They corresponded. Joan wondered for how long. She shook her head as she gazed at Moriarty, whose face was maddeningly impassive.

“You know,” she said, “reading it was…interesting. I couldn’t tell whether you were being sincere or playing another game, trying to manipulate him from behind Newgate’s walls. But I guess that’s how you operate, isn’t it?”

“Is this my thank you for saving your life, darling?”

“It’s me trying to slap myself awake.”

Moriarty tilted her head. A line of concern formed on her brow.

“You wonder if I still feel that way? About what I wrote to Sherlock?”

“I don’t know if you feel anything at all, frankly.”

For the first time, Joan saw what looked like genuine anger on Moriarty’s face.

“You mean for someone else,” she said. “For you, maybe?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would it matter, if I do or don’t? Would it make a whit of difference?”

“Of _course_ it would. Do you think I want to be his proxy in this?”

“His proxy?" Jamie laughed, the sound so infuriating it had Joan digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands. "What do you want, then? Something real? Something _all your own_?”

“Seeing as I’ve let myself get sucked into your vortex— Forget real. I don’t want to be your game anymore.”

Joan watched Moriarty inhale, nostrils flaring; watched as her anger tempered, became something else. Something harder to read. She leaned across the seat, her arm braced on the back of it, and came very close to Joan.

“And if it isn’t a game, dear Watson, what does it become? What happens next?”


	26. Playing Fair

_Another staring contest_ , thought Joan, but she didn’t want to stop looking at Moriarty’s eyes, which were intensely trained on her. And, anyway, the mistake was in letting her gaze flicker away, down to Moriarty’s lips, which were twisted into a dare; a proposition; a question; an answer.

“Let’s not fight,” they said. “Fighting’s boring, and I don’t want to be bored with you. There’s so much that excites me.”

Moriarty swept back a strand of Joan’s hair, tucked it behind her ear; carefully traced the freckles that spanned the bridge of her nose, her cheeks.

Joan sat frozen.

“Will you come to my hotel room?” Moriarty said quietly, toying with the top button on Joan’s blouse. “As much as I enjoyed our…backseat tryst…I think you’ll agree a bed will be more comfortable.”

“You are presumptuous,” Joan replied, her voice dropping to Moriarty’s level.

“Isn’t that why you came here? Isn’t that why you meet with me? Why you haven't attempted to turn me in despite ample opportunity? Or why you didn’t bother hiding how jealous you were to learn that Sherlock and I exchanged letters without your knowing it?”

“You think I didn’t turn you in because I wanted to have sex with you?” Joan laughed. “Also, I’m _not jealous_.”

“Not sex, darling. An experience. You don’t even like to admit how much you enjoy my company. It offends you, doesn’t it?”

“I thought,” Joan countered, “that you didn’t want to fight?”

“Indeed,” Moriarty said, and kissed her.

Kissed her the way Humphrey Bogart might kiss Lauren Bacall. Joan felt fifty feet tall and reckless, kissed back like she’d just been ignited. It was irrational. Stupid. It was frenzied, and serious. Terrifyingly serious.

“One day,” Moriarty whispered, moving away from Joan’s mouth, down her chin, along her jaw to her throat, where her kisses made Joan shiver, “I’ll get you to come away with me. I’ll have you for a week-end; a week; a month. I’ll paint you.”

Joan sighed. Tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

“For now, Joan, won’t you _please_ come to my hotel?”

“You don’t play fair.”

“Never, darling. _Never_.”


	27. The Peninsula

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NB: I wrote this chapter--and therefore gave the Moriarty of this series her backstory-- many, MANY months before it was revealed on Elementary that Joan's birth father suffers from mental illness. Once that happened, it was far too late to change the details of this Moriarty's life, as they had already been woven throughout the rest of the series. So, no, I did not steal from Joan's history to give Moriarty a more compelling (or tragic) backstory. It just happened.

“Is Sherlock expecting you home soon?”

“Um, no. It’s the weekend. We keep to our own schedules unless something really urgent comes up, or we’re called in by the police to do consulting work.”

“I suppose he’d be worried if he couldn’t get hold of you straightaway?”

“Yes, probably.”

“And would he then track your mobile?”

Joan paused. The thought Sherlock would keep tabs on her in that way hadn’t necessarily occurred to her, but now that it was expressed so bluntly… “It’s a possibility. If he was really worried, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Send him a message. Tell him you’ll be going to the cinema and that you’ll be home a bit late. That will explain your being unreachable."

"I never turn my phone off. Not even at the movies. It's a thing we do. In case of emergency."

“My man will take it, then. He can drive to a theater a good distance from here, and sit there for a few hours. Don’t look so suspicious, Joan. It will suit our purposes. I don’t wish to be interrupted, and I certainly don’t want Sherlock having the ability to discover my whereabouts. It’s not that I don’t trust _you_ , you understand,” Moriarty said, holding out a waiting hand, Joan presumed, for her cell phone.

_No_ , Joan thought, as she unzipped her purse. _What am I doing?_ as she took her phone and gave it to Moriarty, who handed it to her driver. The refrain echoed as she followed into The Peninsula hotel, to the elevator, and up to the penthouse suite.

It was more elegant than any other hotel room Joan had ever stayed in. A bottle of Veuve Clicquot sat chilling on one of the tables; next to it two champagne flutes waited.

As Joan admired their surroundings, Moriarty walked past her, shrugging off her suit jacket, draping it across the nearest chair; stepping out of her heels. She was still taller out of them but Joan, who remained fully dressed and in her boots, had more of a fighting chance. It was an odd thought to have, considering they hadn’t come here to fight.

Moriarty, meanwhile, was already pouring the champagne.

“Will you drink with me?” she asked, though it seemed a foregone conclusion.

Joan, who was still lingering by the door, nodded. She walked through the suite, not to examine its furnishings as much as to see what personal effects Moriarty had lying about. Aside from a few toiletries in the restroom and a book by the bed—a well-worn copy of Joyce’s _Dubliners_ —there wasn’t much.

“Have you always been wealthy?” Joan asked, as she finished the tour by Moriarty’s side. Moriarty was looking out the window, they were 19 stories up, as she handed Joan her champagne. It had begun to rain and Manhattan was enshrouded in a thick fog.

“Definitions of wealth vary.”

“I only ask,” Joan said, “because you’ve got good taste—expensive, but not unnecessarily opulent, nor garish. You’re exceptionally well-educated. There’s no disputing your brilliance, but I think you had a good start in life, too. When did you begin your art training?”

Moriarty smiled and replied, “I was quite young."

“Yes, I imagine you were. Private tutors, right? You couldn’t have learned all of that on your own; and you attended the London School of Economics rather than art school because, it turns out, your genius extends to mathematics.”

“What took you so long?” Moriarty asked, affecting boredom. “It was easy enough to uncover, yet you never bothered. With my name, comes my life’s story. Why did you wait?”

Joan shook her head.

“You didn’t want to know,” Moriarty answered. “You secretly wished I might have a tragic past that would explain my behavior. Instead you find I come from a family of means and that I’ve struggled not at all. How _disappointing_.”

Joan tilted her head, continued: “I also learned that your father suffered a nervous breakdown when you were still a teenager. That your older brother, who by all accounts was a professional adventurer, disappeared while climbing K2. Then there’s your mother—there’s nothing about her, anywhere.”

Moriarty downed her champagne. Poured more. Took a sip and set down the flute. Her expression took on a sardonic bemusement as she began to slowly, steadily remove the pins from her hair.

“Is this the bit where we reveal how much we know about one another? Joan Watson: upper middle class family with whom you keep close ties; well-adjusted; bright; overachieving. You made one mistake on the operating table, a mistake that haunts you to this day. And so you gave up surgery for, of all things, _sober companionship_. Overnight you transform yourself from an angel of death to savior of the most pathetic lives imaginable.”

Her hair was loose. She began unbuttoning her blouse.

“Then, by some miracle, you meet the incredible Sherlock Holmes. You save him, and he saves you, too, somehow. It’s unclear to me just how, but since you’re now a detective of sorts, he must have offered you something worthwhile. Perhaps you’ve stopped floundering through life, Watson.”

Moriarty’s blouse was open. Beneath it she wore a cream-colored camisole. Joan stepped closer and helped untuck it from her skirt. Reached under it, her hands spanning Moriarty’s ribs. Moriarty had stopped talking. She was now watching carefully. Waiting.

Joan tipped up to kiss her. It was a short, intense kiss.

“You’re right,” she said, stroking up Moriarty’s torso, to her breasts. “I didn’t want to know, then.”

Moriarty sighed, put her hands over Joan’s, squeezed them. Dipped her head and kissed a meandering path along her throat. Whispered, “And now, darling?”

“Now? Now, I think—I want to know everything.”


	28. The Fall

“Everything is quite a lot,” Moriarty said, her fingers sliding beneath Joan’s lapels, pushing her coat off of her shoulders and down her arms. Joan let it fall to the ground. There were three buttons keeping Joan’s top from easily coming off, and they were dispensed with efficiently and without fuss. Joan automatically raised her arms as Moriarty pulled the shirt over her head, tossed it away without looking. She did stop to admire what she’d exposed, tracing the lacy edges of Joan’s bra before cupping her breasts firmly, possessively. Joan swayed as a frisson of heat and pleasure rolled through her. Her eyes closed as Moriarty pressed open-mouthed kisses to the side of her throat and murmured, “You’d have to do quite a bit of digging to get at everything.”

“I’m a good detective,” she replied tightly, nearly forgetting the thread of conversation, gripping Moriarty’s shoulders as she was walked backwards until her ass hit what felt like the sharp edge of a table. “You’d be surprised.”

“Nonsense--that wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

It was the silky deep tone, the cadence of Moriarty’s words, the candid admiration Joan heard there, that produced within her a physical response. She had already resigned herself to wanting Moriarty, but desiring her from a distance hadn’t prepared her for _how much_ she would want. How her fingers would tremble as she grabbed the sides of Moriarty’s face to pull her into a hard kiss. How intensely her heart would slam against her chest when Moriarty reached under her skirt. How she wouldn’t be able to stop the helpless whimpers that fell from her lips as Moriarty ( _Jamie,_ she thought, _is she Jamie?_ ) pulled away from the kiss and looked at her with pointed concentration as she stroked over her underwear, her eyes searching, exacting. _Knowing_.

And then Moriarty dropped to her knees and stayed there until Joan was a quavering mess, legs shaking, breath coming in short, rough bursts. Her throat hurt; her mouth was dry. When she came, she felt close to tears, it was such an all-consuming shock.

When she could think again, Joan found herself half atop the table, her hand against Moriarty’s scalp, fingers tangled in her hair. She softened the hold, whispered a “sorry” Moriarty smiled at as she slowly stood, her body angling, curving into Joan’s body. They were both still half-dressed, and the responsiveness of Moriarty’s kiss was a reminder that they weren’t done. Moriarty’s breath hitched when Joan bit into the swell of her breast.

“Bed,” she said, and on the way there, they finished removing the rest of their clothes.

Joan didn’t wait for an invitation. Moriarty’s knees fell apart, and she fell between them. She really hadn’t known how much she’d wanted to feel Moriarty break apart until she was making it happen. She’d wanted it so badly it made her ache all over again, and when Moriarty’s back bowed off the bed and her body convulsed with her release, Joan touched herself again, her orgasm so intense she had to muffle a shout against Moriarty’s thigh.

They stayed that way for a long time, until her sweat cooled and Joan found her eyes slowly shutting.

“Don’t,” Moriarty said quietly, her voice a bit deeper, a bit roughened. Joan found it sexy. She looked up and liked the view even more. Moriarty’s hair wild, her face flushed. She looked like she was half asleep herself, but she continued, drowsily, “Don’t. We’ve only a few hours.”

“Hmm,” Joan agreed, nodding, but she didn’t move and she was resting her head on Moriarty’s stomach. Listening to, _feeling_ , Moriarty’s breathing even out. Closing her own eyes. Drifting.

And soon they were both, as far as she knew, gone.


	29. The Landing

Joan awoke slowly to Moriarty’s mouth nuzzling the back of her neck, and though she was still half in-dreams her body was completely aware, completely ready. Without opening her eyes, she sighed, sank into the embrace that followed—Moriarty molding into her, arms around her waist, hands wandering up from her stomach to her breasts. Caresses that intensified by degrees—gentle kisses along her throat turned into a hard sucking where her shoulder met her neck; pliant hands on her breasts became rough, alternately pinching and soothing; the thigh that had insinuated itself between her legs was now pressing into her, pressing and sliding so hard Joan could only gasp at each intervening sensation. And then her face was against the mattress and Moriarty’s body was fully against hers, hands gone from Joan’s breast but now rubbing into Joan’s sides, down her back to her ass, along her thighs. She kissed every place she touched—Joan felt a hot, open mouth; tongue; teeth. Kissed the back of Joan’s thighs and worked back up until she was once more fully against Joan, covering her body, one arm around her waist, pinning her, keeping her from moving, as her hand slipped between Joan’s legs. She stroked firmly, evenly, slowly. Joan couldn’t breathe. With her arms over her head she reached back, sank her fingers into Moriarty’s hair; she tugged roughly as she turned her head, the muscles in her neck straining when Moriarty found her lips, kissed her so hungrily Joan’s head began to spin. The fingers inside of her worked faster, and her lungs burned. She came with Moriarty’s tongue in her mouth.

It wasn’t long before Moriarty gave her room to turn around, and Joan was still sucking in air while Moriarty watched her, eyes dark with wanting, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She had one knee on either side of Joan’s hips when Joan put her hands on the back of her thighs and said, “Come here,” so that her meaning would be unmistakable. If there was anything less than graceful about the way Moriarty slid up Joan’s body and knelt above her, Joan didn’t notice it. She just stared. Stared at Moriarty white-knuckling the headboard; stared up as Moriarty looked down at her as if Joan had all the power in the world. And Joan gave her what she wanted; leaned up and tasted her, and they groaned together so that it echoed in the room. In this way, at least, they understood one another.

—

“I should go,” Joan said, as she stared at the ceiling. She was hungry. Parts of her felt bruised. It was still raining; she could hear it, hitting the windows. Tap, tap, tap. She didn’t want to leave. She could have stayed in that bed for days.

Moriarty lay on her side, head cradled in her hand. She was idly tracing the freckles on Joan’s chest.

“I suppose you should,” she replied. “Or you could come with me when I leave tonight. We could go anywhere, you know.”

“I can’t.”

“Ah, of course. You’re here with me, and you wonder _how_ you could be here because what I do is anathema to you.”

“Moriarty—"

“A bit much, all of those syllables. Do call me Jamie. It’s too late to be formal, I think. That’s not regret is it, Joan?”

Joan looked at her. She shook her head and Moriarty’s face softened. _She’s lonely_ , Joan thought.

What could be more human than that?


	30. [Interlude #7]

Watching Joan get dressed was just as sexy, Jamie thought, as watching her undress. Though, to be fair, the undressing had been done rather hurriedly, and with a goal in mind. The dressing was being done self-consciously—Joan had a blush to her cheek, and every now and again she would glance up to see if Jamie was still watching her. She rolled her eyes when Jamie smiled at her, but there was a quirking of her lips at the end of it, and that produced its own kind of satisfaction.

“It’ll be different next time,” Jamie said.

For a moment, Joan seemed shocked by the words, but then her face relaxed and an eyebrow shot up as she laughed, as if the very notion were a joke.

“Is that a no? Don’t tell me you didn’t have a good time, Watson.”

“I wouldn’t. I’m not that good a liar—”

“But?”

“But this isn’t the kind of relationship I want to be in. I want something…”

“Normal?”

“ _Yes_. I mean, why shouldn’t I?”

“Normal as in online dating normal?”

Jamie smiled.

“Oh, god, you… Of course you know,” Joan said, stepping into her boots. She was fully put-together now, and looking through her purse. “Damn, I forgot about my phone. I need my phone. And, really, there’s nothing unusual about online dating. Plenty of people do it. Plenty of _nice_ people.”

Jamie took her mobile from the nightstand, sent a quick message to her driver. “My man will be here in a few minutes.” Annoyed by Joan’s tone, she got out of bed and walked, naked, to get herself a drink of water. “Nice people who take you on perfectly nice dates, I imagine,” she said, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. She went back to Joan, who was now sitting at the edge of the bed, clutching her purse. “If that’s what you want, darling.”

She opened the bottle and drank, watching Joan watch her.

When Joan dragged her gaze to the floor, she sighed.

“It’s not,” she admitted. “But this?” She gestured between them. “This is a minefield.”

Jamie sat beside her, screwed the top back on the bottle, and tossed it behind them. She leaned back, elbows locked and fingers splayed, thinking all the while of longing and of how she had been sure it would be gone now that she had shared this experience with Joan, an experience which, in the aggregate, could never be repeated. _Why try_ , she thought, _but for the simple matter of longing?_ Of course, it wasn’t gone. It had returned in anticipation of Joan Watson’s departure—a serious problem, but one Jamie was loath to resolve.

“One we can navigate, surely?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound desperate, which was the worst of all possible emotions, one that had to be stamped out.

Joan turned, gave her a long look.

“Maybe,” she said, which seemed incongruous with the kiss she gave Jamie a moment later.

They fell back against the mattress and stayed that way, lips locked and arms round each other, until there was a knocking at the door.

Jamie slipped into a robe as Joan answered.

“This was left downstairs for you,” the concierge said. “The man who had it said I should bring it up. He had your code,” he added, looking around Joan to Jamie, who dismissed him with a nod.

“I have to go,” Joan said, as she looked at her phone. “There’s… a thing.”

“A thing with Sherlock,” Jamie surmised. “Of course. I’ll be leaving soon, anyway.”

Joan slipped her phone into her purse, and for a moment Jamie thought she would leave without saying good-bye. But then she walked back to Jamie, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Good luck,” she said. “Be careful.”

“Luck’s a fool’s conceit, Watson. I make my own,” Jamie replied, giving Joan a hard, lingering kiss, stuffing her fists in her robe pockets to keep from reaching for her again. When they parted, it was Joan gripping Jamie’s shoulders. Jamie shrugged out of the touch, turned round, and walked away. “Until next time, darling,” she said, relieved when she finally heard the sound of the door opening and closing.

She picked up her phone, rang Lionel.

“Tell me the plane’s ready,” she said.

“It’s ready.”

“Good. I’ll meet you at the airport in an hour.”

She threw the mobile down. Went for a shower. _I need a job_ , she thought, as she ran the water as hot as she could stand it. _A job will keep me busy._

_A job will help me forget._


	31. [Interlude #8]

It seemed as though the rain had followed her from New York to London and now to Hong Kong. As she gazed out of the hotel window, she watched it fall into Victoria Harbour, watched as early morning fog rose like steam from the water. Mr. Wei kept strict hours, and he preferred doing business as soon as the sun was out. Jamie, jet-lagged and irritated by the way the negotiation was going, took a sip of her tea and grimaced. It had gone cold.

Wei leaned close to one of his lieutenants and murmured something in Cantonese. She caught just enough of it to know he was unhappy as well. They had, for the better part of an hour, been discussing the scope of her operation, and how if he wished to keep smuggling his counterfeit wares, he had to go through her. His Louis Vuitton, his Chanel, his Prada, his Gucci, his Cambridge Satchel—it all had to pass through her organisation if he wished for it to arrive on London streets so those with little taste for anything but the appearance of luxury could get their stupid hands on them.

“You didn’t ask me here so we could argue over smuggling fees,” she said pointedly.

“I wanted to see for myself that you were still alive,” Wei replied. “There were rumours.”

“I don’t see why you should trust rumours, when our business has continued apace.”

“I appreciate your effort to save face, madam, but your business suffered when you were exposed, and you lost considerable power whilst you were in prison. Your rebound has been nothing short of miraculous, but you’ve many enemies and your situation is still…tenuous, shall we say?”

Jamie gave him a long, measured look.

“Enemies. Who hasn’t enemies in our line of work, Mr. Wei? We win by outliving them, do we not?”

Wei, who always dressed in Savile Row suits and had his hair fashionably cut, smiled. Jamie had never seen him smile, and for some reason the sight of his small, even teeth fitting together just so made her jaw clench.

“Truthfully,” he said, “there was another matter, a matter of a more disturbing nature, that we wished to discuss with you.”

“Really?” she replied, leaning back in her seat, schooling her face into composure.

“Do you know Douglas Remarque?”

“Should I?”

“The story of his untimely death made all of the British papers,” Wei said. He lit a cigarette, inhaled, and continued through a cloud of smoke: “He was a very prominent man and his murder came as a shock, as much for the seeming randomness of the act as for the killing itself. Because he wanted to go into politics, Mr. Remarque was trying to legitimize most aspects of his business, but of course he still held onto little tendrils here and there. We shared common interests.”

“Perhaps he stepped on the wrong toes. What’s that got to do with me?” Jamie asked.

“Killing partners is bad form, madam. Very bad form, indeed, but I understand that there are instances when it simply cannot be avoided. Now, you know that I am expanding my efforts here and on the Chinese mainland. I am…diversifying, yes? You’ve previously made it clear that you do not handle those kinds of exports.”

“No,” Jamie said. “Nor will I now accede to do so through your meek attempts at coercion, Mr. Wei.”

Wei smiled again. A chill went down Jamie’s spine.

“No, of course,” he said. “But there are those within your organisation willing to make the leap. Perhaps it’s time for a restructuring?”

At those words, Jamie stood up, prepared to leave. She looked to Lionel, to signal their exit, but Lionel was already standing by the door. He reached under his suit jacket for his holster, but when he pulled out his pistol, he did not point it at Wei or any of his men. He pointed the gun at Jamie.

“I wish I could say that I’m sorry,” he said, and fired.


	32. [Interlude #9]

There was tremendous pain. More pain than Jamie had ever known. A white-hot burn, a jolt that knocked the breath right out of her. She should have known. She should have seen it coming. How stupid. How very, very stupid.

And then she was somewhere else.

A rubbish heap. Wet, filthy, muddy. The odour of piss and shit and rotting food, and blood. Her blood. So she was tossed away. _How stupid_ , she thought, but this time she thought it of Lionel, who should have known better than to leave her alive. _You don’t fire once; you don’t leave someone breathing. I’ll not die here_. Even in that moment she knew it to be wishful thinking. The grasping thoughts of a dying woman. She was dizzy, and frightfully cold. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed because when Jamie rolled onto her back there was no sun, only concrete reaching up to the sky, as far as she could see.

The air was thick with noxious smoke: not far from where she was, someone was burning refuse.

“Hello?” she called as loudly as she could. She coughed, put her hand to her side. It came back with the viscous warmth of blood. When she tried sitting up, she found she didn’t have the strength for it. She called again, this time, “Please!” And again, in Cantonese.

The desire to close her eyes was unbearable, urgent. _But if I sleep now, what chance have I got?_

She was about to call out again, perhaps for the last time, but when she looked up there was already a woman standing over her, a small, South Asian woman with a round face and deep-set eyes. She stared down at Jamie with palpable shock.

“You’re hurt.”

“Please.” It was all Jamie could say.

And then the woman disappeared and Jamie believed herself dead until the moment the woman reappeared with a tall, lanky boy who picked Jamie up as though she weighed nothing at all.

“Don’t worry. We will take you to hospital,” the woman said.

“No, no, please,” Jamie said, struggling weakly. “I can’t go to hospital. Bring a doctor, okay? Someone who…who will…come to your home, yes?”

“I am sorry, but there is no room for you in our home.”

“I’ll...pay.”

“Your money will not make our home bigger,” the woman replied.

The boy, meanwhile, laughed and said, “Where do you keep your money, miss? In your torn stockings? Under that dirty blouse? Are you a whore, miss?”

The woman slapped him across the shoulder, and he laughed again.

Every step he took felt like a hot knife sliding in and out of Jamie. More than once, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she was astonished when she was able to will herself back into consciousness.

They had cleared of the buildings and reached the road when the woman pointed and said, “There is your uncle.”

“Do you think he’ll take her?”

“He must.”

A half-block down sat a taxi, and that was where the boy carried her.

A man got out of it, gaped at them for a moment before raising his hands in the air. “What is this?” he asked.

“She was in the rubbish,” the woman said. “I think she has been shot, and you must take her to hospital.”

“Must I? To hospital? God’s sake, you’ve brought me a dying woman! She will bleed in my taxi and she will die, and then the Chinese will say _I_ must go to prison.”

“Uncle,” the boy said, suddenly serious as he looked down at her and he readjusted his grip. “What choice is there?”

The uncle ran a rough hand across his face and opened the back door to his car.

“Hurry,” he said to the boy, “before she passes on. You’ll come with me. When we get to hospital, we will leave her by the entrance. I won’t be involved in this.”

He was true to his word. The vehicle careened through city streets for what seemed to Jamie a very long time, but must have been a matter of minutes. She was dipping in and out of consciousness; sleep called, but the boy slapped her, saying, “Don’t go yet, miss. Not yet.”

When they reached the hospital, the boy pulled her out of the seat and set her down on the ground next to the entrance. He said, “Good luck,” and ran back to the car. His uncle honked several times before speeding away.

A woman, a nurse, peeked out the door, gasped and ran back. A few moments later, a team came out with a gurney, lifted Jamie onto it, and ushered her inside.

No one spoke to her until they had her out of her clothes and examining her wound. There was a lot of yelling. The pain was beginning to ebb; she felt everything, every poke and prod, as though she were outside of her body. Someone talked straight into her ear; asked her name.

“J-” Jamie caught herself. “Joan…Watson.”

“You’re British?

“Yes.”

“Are you with someone?”

“N-no. Alone.”

“Do you know who did this to you?”

“No.”

“Is there someone we should contact?”

“No. Yes. Irene. Irene Adler.”

“Okay, okay. Wait, wait—don’t close your eyes just yet, please. Have you a telephone number?”

“…Yes.”


	33. Bottom of the Ninth

“Your precious team is not going to win this game, Watson. I’ve zero interest in what’s happening, and yet I can tell you with complete and utter certainty that they are not going to win, and they are not going to make the next round of play.”

“It’s called the play-offs, and I swear to God, Sherlock, if you say one more word I’m going to throw this ball at you.“

“That’s another thing—”

Joan whipped around and threw her lucky baseball, hitting Sherlock squarely on the shin. He yelped with surprise and glowered at her.

“Next time,” she said, tugging on the brim of her Mets cap, “I’ll throw it hard.”

“Oh, was that not hard?”

“I’m going to shake off your bad ju-ju, so you’d better keep walking. This next at-bat is crucial, and—“

Her phone rang. She let it ring and ring. When it stopped, Joan sighed and looked at the number. A long string of digits.

“Huh.”

“What is it?” Sherlock asked, hovering by the door as he had been for most of the game.

“International call.”

Sherlock’s expression grew cold, and Joan knew what he was thinking.

“No, when she calls I get an unknown caller message. This is just a number.”

“Where from?”

“I’ll look it up after the game…”

“Well, give it here. I’ll do it.”

Joan was about to pass Sherlock her phone when it began to ring again. Same international number. She glanced mournfully at the tv—the Phillies had just scored another run—and answered.

“Yes?”

“May I speak with Irene Adler, please?”

“What?”

“Irene Adler.”

“Who is this?”

“I’m calling from Tuen Mun Hospital in Hong Kong. I’m from the casualty unit, and I would like to speak to Irene Adler, please.”

Joan opened her mouth, but she wasn’t sure what to say. Sherlock was watching her intently.

“I’m… Um, speaking. That’s me.”

“Good. Hello, Miss Adler. I’m calling because we’ve a patient here—Joan Watson—who has asked that you be contacted. She was brought in yesterday with a serious injury, she underwent surgery and is currently in intensive care. Unfortunately she seems to be the victim of some sort of robbery, and she’s got no identification or money. Yours was the only name she was able to give us.”

Joan was sure she hadn’t been able to contain any of the feelings she’d just experienced in the last twenty seconds. Her heart was pounding and when she glanced down she saw she’d brought her hand to her chest. Sherlock had taken several steps closer, consternation written all over his face.

“Uh, okay, thank you…thanks for letting me know. Will she, um, will she be okay?”

“It’s a bit soon to tell. She did lose a lot of blood, and she’s had multiple transfusions. I could ring her attending physician for you, and she’ll probably have a bit more to say about it. Will you be coming to see her?”

“I… I’m in the United States,” Joan said, the shock not wearing off. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and Sherlock stepped closer still.

“Yes, I’m aware, but as I’ve explained, there seems to be no one else. Or might you be able to contact someone to come and see about her care?”

“Can I talk to her?”

“She’s sedated at the moment. Of course, when she comes ‘round—“

“I’m, um, I’ll be there. I’ll try to catch a flight, I mean.” She stood up, did a 360 as she scanned the room for a pen and paper. “I’m sorry, let me just…I need to write this…down.”

Sherlock had a pen and a scrap of paper for her a moment later.

“Can you repeat the name of the hospital?”

“It’s Tuen Mun, Miss Adler.”

“Great. Yeah, thank you. I’ve got your number on my phone so… Listen, if—when—she wakes up, tell her to call me, okay?”

“Yes, Miss Adler. Good day.”

“Bye.”

The call ended, but Joan kept staring at her phone’s screen.

“What is it, Watson? What’s happened?”

“Um, she’s, she’s in the hospital.”

“Who is?”

Joan shook her head, closed her eyes. If she told him… She couldn’t.

“My, my… cousin. She’s in Hong Kong, and I think she was robbed, or something.”

“Your cousin?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going?”

“She…asked for me. She’s in bad shape, I think.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, we’ll have to find you a flight out, won’t we? Would you like me to come with you?”

Joan dropped her gaze as she shook her head. She couldn’t even look at him.

“Listen,” he told her, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder that dropped away quickly. “Go and pack, I’ll call the airline, all right?”

She nodded and thanked him.

Took the stairs two at a time. Grabbed her overnight bag. Began to pack with shaky hands.

She stopped, dropped the clothes she had been folding, and covered her face as she took one hard breath after another.

_Oh, God_ , she thought. _Oh, God._


	34. Tuen Mun

When Joan arrived in Hong Kong twenty hours later, she felt out of time. She was exhausted; achy; dirty; hungry. All she wanted was to take a shower and sleep. The entire flight over, she’d managed maybe twenty minutes of naptime, and even those had been perturbed by thoughts of Moriarty dying; dead; gone.

Because she had left New York in a rush and there had been no time to follow up, Joan still wasn’t clear on the exact nature of her injuries. A possible robbery, the hospital had said, but given Moriarty’s line of work, that was an unlikely story. The blood transfusions told Joan she had suffered major blood loss, so it wasn’t far-fetched to surmise Moriarty had been shot again, this time by someone with slightly better aim. _Why hadn’t they finished the job?_   Joan wondered, the very idea filling her with cold dread. There was nothing to indicate Moriarty might not die, anyway.

After the end of their very first entanglement—the one that had ended with Moriarty in Newgate—Joan might not have felt much at the notion of Moriarty’s death. Sympathy, certainly, for Sherlock, who would have grieved in his own way, despite all of the harm she had caused him. A certain twinge of sadness, of the kind she felt whenever someone died and a life was wasted.

Nothing like the disorienting sensation that twice had her out of her airplane seat and into the bathroom so that she could cry without being asked what was wrong by a well-meaning stranger.

And so, despite how tired she was, she did little more in her hotel room than drop off her luggage and brush her teeth before she headed back out with a single destination in mind.

Tuen Mun was a large, busy hospital, and it took Joan a while to navigate her way to the fifth floor. By then she was bone-weary, and she must’ve looked it when she went up to a nurse and asked about Jamie.

Well: “Hi, I’m here to see a friend. Her name is Joan Watson? I think she’s on this floor. I’m not sure, actually. I might be lost—”

The woman lit up. “Not at all. I’m so happy to see you’re here. I was the one to call you. You're Miss Adler, yes? I’m Helen Suk-ling.”

“Yes. Yep, that’s me. It’s nice to meet you. I’m… Sorry, it’s been a long trip—but how is she?”

“She seems to be responding well to treatment. Come, please, I’ll take you to her room.”

As they walked down the corridor, Joan remembered to ask, “When we last spoke, I forgot to ask exactly what it was that happened to her.”

“Ah, yes, of course. It was a gunshot wound, I’m afraid. We assumed she was robbed because she had no personal effects and she was dropped at the emergency entrance by someone who left immediately.”

Someone had left her at the hospital? Didn’t sound like anyone who’d want her dead.

Joan wanted to ask for more details; as a doctor, she was curious—she wanted to know more, the extent of the damage and how it had been repaired, but for now she kept her mouth closed. Maybe it was better this Irene Adler remain as inconspicuous as possible.

They continued their walk, passing through a series of double doors until they reached the Intensive Care Unit.

Moriarty’s room was a few doors down from the nurses’ station. When they entered it, Joan wasn’t sure what she would find.

What she saw was Jamie—pale, very pale. Hooked up to IVs. Her head was turned away from the door, but Joan could see she was sleeping.

“Where was she shot?” Joan whispered.

“The abdomen. You’ll have to ask her surgeon more about it, but from what I understand the laparotomy went very well; she had no major organ or bowel damage. The blood loss was the primary concern and now, of course, any secondary effects, such as infection. But, as I said, thus far she is responding well to treatment.”

Joan nodded, relieved. Jamie could survive this. She would.

“You’re welcome to stay,” Helen said. “Though perhaps after your long trip you need some rest?”

“I’m fine. I think I’ll stay a little while.”

Helen smiled at her. “If you need anything, we’re just across the way.”

“Thank you.”

Alone, Joan dropped her purse on a nearby counter and sighed heavily. She pulled a chair close to the bed and sat there, watching Jamie sleep. Eventually, she fell asleep, too, because the next thing she knew, she was blinking open her eyes. Jamie, lying on her good side, was looking back at her.

“Hi,” Joan said.

“You’re here,” Jamie said quietly.

“I am.”

“They called, and you came here.”

Joan nodded. She stood up, groaned when her back protested the abrupt shift in position, and closed the short distance to the bed. She sat on the edge of it, looking down at Moriarty.

“Are you in pain?”

Jamie shook her head. “A bit, but they’ve got me drugged up.” She frowned. “Are you truly here?”

Careful to avoid the IV needle, Joan touched Jamie’s fingers. “Yes,” she said. “What happened?”

“A restructuring.”

“What?”

“They fucked me over.”

“Who did?”

“I don't know, exactly. Lionel, for one. I’ve got to sort it out…”

“Not from here, you’re not.”

“No,” Jamie agreed, closing her eyes. “Not from here. Go and get some rest, Watson. You look awful.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I meant to say thank you. Thank you, Joan.”


	35. A Case of Identity

Joan slept for ten hours straight, and would have kept on sleeping if the room’s phone hadn’t woken her. She reached for it blindly, finally succeeded in knocking it out of its cradle before putting the receiver to her ear.

“Um. Hello?”

“Watson?”

“Yeah?”

“Watson, were you sleeping? What time is it there?”

“I’m jet-lagged, Sherlock.”

“You said you would call.”

“I know. I’m sorry; I sort of just…passed out.”

“Well?”

“Hm?”

“How is your cousin faring?”

“My cousin. My cousin’s…” Joan sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I think she’ll be okay.”

“And what happened to her?”

“She was, she was shot… Mugged, apparently.”

“That’s horrible. But she will live,” Sherlock said emphatically. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. I don’t believe I ever got her name?”

“Claire. Claire Watson.”

“Oh, on your father’s side.”

“Um hmm. Listen, I’ve got to go—I really overslept and I want to go see how she’s doing this…” She glanced at her watch and grimaced. “Evening. Thanks for checking up on me, though.”

“When will you be coming home, do you think?”

“I… I don’t know. It’s hard to say right now. I’m the only person she’s got here, and she’s…recuperating, so. It’s hard to say.”

“A week? Two weeks?”

“Maybe. I’ll call you, okay?”

“Yes, fine. Attend to your cousin.”

“Bye. Thank you.”

“Good-bye.”

She should have felt guiltier. She did feel guilt, but it had become secondary; like a scratch you remember because it stings in the shower, only it’s a wound that never really heals. As soon as she hung up, she reminded herself of words Sherlock had once told her: that there was nothing so toxic in the world as guilt. He was right, but the aftereffects of it lingered anyway, and she couldn’t brush it away like dirt off her shoulder. So the guilt would stay; now it was just a matter of setting it aside the best way she could.

So she rolled out of bed, showered, dressed, and left her room with the express objective of finding something to eat. Down the street from the hotel, she found a dai pai dong and stood while she ate a bowl of noodles, watching the city go by. She had been so hungry, she considered it in that moment the best meal she had ever had. When she was done, she hailed a cab and headed for Tuen Mun.

She found Jamie sleeping; she’d been moved to a regular room from ICU, which was a relief. The ICU was filled with worried faces and stressed workers. A regular room meant progress. While Jamie slept, Joan sat down and read from a book on forensic botany.

A good while later, Jamie’s voice, low and sleep-rough, said, “That seems dreadful.”

Joan had been so absorbed by her reading she hadn’t noticed her waking up.

“It’s not, actually,” she replied, dog-earing the page she was on, setting the book aside. “How are you?”

“Shot. In hospital.”

Joan smiled. “I mean, how’s your pain?”

“Worse. They’ve reduced the morphine, apparently.”

“That’s a good thing,” Joan said, standing up, walking to Jamie’s bedside. “You’ll be more alert, less sleepy.”

Jamie rubbed the side of her face, touched her hand to her lips, which were dry and beginning to crack.

“May I have some water? I wasn't allowed to earlier,” she said. Joan left to check with a nurse who gave the okay. Then she found a pitcher and poured a glass from which Jamie took tiny sips. “I must look a fright,” she said, when she was done drinking.

“You look fine.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Oh, please.”

“You look like you’re in the hospital,” Joan amended, laughing when Jamie made a horrified face. “I’ve got lip balm, and I can brush your hair, if you want me to?”

“God, you _are_ an angel.

Joan opened her purse, dug around for a little container of Kiehl’s. When she found it, she unscrewed the cap, put a bit of balm on her finger. “Here,” she said, waiting for Jamie’s lips to part. When they did, she carefully applied some under Jamie’s watchful gaze. “Better?”

Jamie rolled her lips together and nodded.

“You know, your mouth’s a little crooked.”

Jamie smiled. “Is it?” she asked. “Is that bad?”

While Joan pretended to think about it, Jamie’s smile widened.

“No. It’s not bad,” Joan finally said, taking a hairbrush from her purse. “Would you be okay if I move the bed upright?”

“I think so.”

Joan pressed one of the buttons on the bed, and slowly the top half moved up so that Jamie was nearly in a sitting position.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

Then Joan began to slowly, slowly brush the tangles out of Jamie’s hair.

“What makes you so good at this?”

“Brushing your hair?”

“Taking care of people.”

“I don’t know that I am good at it.”

“You’re doing it, and I’m telling you that you are.”

“Well, it’s not that hard, and I’m doing it because I want to.”

“I suppose it’s just not an instinct I’ve got.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“That’s not really something I do, darling.”

The brush hit a snag, and Jamie winced. Joan said, “Sorry,” and carefully worked the knot out with her fingers. “You wouldn’t do this for me?” she asked.

Jamie was quiet for a long time. When she answered, Joan had almost forgotten she’d asked. “Maybe for you.”

_And Sherlock_ , Joan wanted to say, but she bit her tongue and kept stroking Jamie’s hair. They fell into what seemed an unspoken agreement to stop talking until every tangle had been worked out of Jamie’s hair.

She asked if she could brush her teeth, and Joan found in the adjoining bathroom a travel-sized toothpaste and brush.

“I almost feel alive,” Jamie said, when she’d finished. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. So. What comes next? You’re here—you have no ID, no money. What can I do?”

Jamie frowned. “You’re serious.”

“You didn’t think I’d turn you in to Interpol. If you’d thought that, you wouldn’t have asked for my help.”

“You’re the only one I’ve got, Watson.”

“Yeah, I am, so tell me what to do.”


	36. The Intercontinental Plot

“There’s an envelope with money and a new set of travel documents hidden in my hotel room. Preventative measures, you understand. The problem is that Lionel had access to that room, and I don’t know if he’s left the country, or if perhaps he’s waiting to see if I make a miraculous return from the dead.”

“Lionel’s the man who shot you.”

“Indeed. Lionel Winthrop—my right-hand man. Betrayed me, shot me, and left me for dead.”

“I’m sorry to ask this but why would he leave you for dead? Why not make sure the job’s done?”

“I’ve been asking myself that question since it happened, and I haven’t an answer. Lionel’s a pro. He knows how to kill people, and he does so on a very regular basis. Why he didn’t simply put a bullet through my head, I can’t say. Perhaps he wanted me to feel … humiliated? My injuries were severe enough that I would have died in that pile of rubbish; if that woman and her son hadn’t come by and plucked me out, I certainly would have.”

“Did you two have problems? Would he have felt…slighted enough to want to hurt you like that?”

“None at all. Or, well, none that I knew about. Obviously something was going on I wasn’t aware of. It’s possible, Watson, this is all a matter of money, but if it had been, I think I would have been disposed of more neatly.”

“It’s lucky for you it wasn’t, then.”

“Yes, I suppose that now I must concede luck was the element that kept me alive.”

“So,” Joan said. “I go to your hotel—”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because if he’s there, he’s got you at a disadvantage. He knows what you look like, Joan. If he sees you, he’ll know something’s up, and he won’t hesitate in taking you out.”

“I know how to handle myself,” Joan insisted. “I can be careful.”

“You’re unarmed; you’re alone; he knows your face. I’m sure you’ve learned quite a bit from Sherlock these past few years, but you can’t know how to protect yourself from a man like Lionel.”

“Then call the hotel. Find out if he’s there. They know your voice, don’t they? Or—you’ve probably set up a code the way you did at the Peninsula.”

“…Yes.”

“Why wouldn’t that work, Jamie? There’s no risk. Call, and if he’s still there I won’t go near the place without taking the proper precautions. But if he isn’t, you’ll tell them I’m on my way to pick up something you forgot, and that’ll be that.”

“Because if I call and he _is_ there, Watson, he’ll find out I’ve called. That will begin a countdown. He will come looking for me. And I assure you—he will find me in extremely short order. As you are aware, I’m currently in no position to defend myself, nor you.”

“But he doesn’t know I’m coming. He doesn’t know to look out for me. If I wear a disguise, stake out the hotel… Where were you staying?”

“The Intercontinental.”

“Maybe I can get a room for a couple of nights; it’ll be easier to keep tabs that way… Look, I can do this, okay? I don’t want to say you don’t know what I’m capable of, but clearly you don’t know what I’m capable of.”

Jamie gave Joan a long look before reaching out to take her face between both hands.

“Of course, you’re right,” she said, quietly but with a strange intensity Joan found unsettling. “What was it you once told me? That I flit in and out of your life? It’s true, isn’t it, and so how could I possibly know you at all? You would be right to trust whatever it is Sherlock says about me. That I’m a liar, surely. That I’m black-hearted. After Newgate, I thought it would be easy to break you open and take a look at what made you up. At what it was that Sherlock found so fascinating. What it was that I had missed, when I’d been too busy dismissing you as a mascot. You were not his mascot, but his partner; his complement. You made him _better_.” Her forehead pressed against Joan’s; it was hot, fevered. Jamie whispered, “My dear Joan, I _want_ to know you.”

Joan lowered her gaze as she felt her heart lodge in her throat.

“Oh,” she said, putting her hand to Jamie’s side.

“Hm?”

“You’re bleeding.”


	37. Watson & Moriarty

Joan was ushered out of the room as a doctor and nurse went in to check on Jamie’s sutures. On the way out she told them she thought Jamie was feverish. “She might need a stronger antibiotic. What did you use for prophylaxis? Cefazolin?” she’d asked, out of old habit, only to be met with patronizing assurances. And so she stood outside, by the door, her head tipped against the wall and her arms crossed behind her back, wondering what Sherlock would say if he could see her now. Not that she had to wonder. She could intuit well enough the look that might cross his face, the stubborn set of his jaw as he tried to resolve her betrayal. “Watson,” it would say. “You sad, stupid fool.” That was the worst of it: she was sure he wouldn’t be angry. It would be the lie that would disappoint him most. The lie and her abject failure to see reason; she had only to wrap herself up in the language of emotion when it came to Moriarty, and she could excuse anything. Unconsciously, she could shove aside Moriarty’s whirlwind of destruction, locking it away in favor of her gilded, cutting smiles—the twist of her mouth and the feline sit of her pale blue eyes. The problem with Moriarty was that she managed, in the wake of her wit and intensity and beauty, to reduce her sins to trifles.

“I want to know you,” she had said, and with those words Joan could only imagine a scientist prodding her specimen. But, then, what about Jamie’s desperation?

_She’s a liar; she lies; she is lying._ Suddenly angry, Joan bumped her head against the wall and balled her fists. A nurse walking by gave her a sympathetic smile. _Maybe she thinks I’m grieving._

The nurses’ station was across the way, and she went up to one of the attendants and asked if she could use the phone. He handed her the receiver and she had him dial the operator.

“The number for the Intercontinental Hotel, please.”

She reserved a room at the cheapest rate they had—not cheap at all—and resolved not to dwell on anything but the present. She’d been over it, again and again, and this wasn’t the time to feel sorry over bad choices. That could wait.

When she was allowed back into the room, and the doctor and nurse had cleared out, Joan sat in the chair beside Jamie’s bed and said, “I reserved a room at your hotel.”

“Watson…”

“It’s not a big deal. This is something I can do. Okay?”

Jamie, who looked smaller than she had a few minutes earlier, who in her fresh gown looked even paler than before, glanced out the window and said, “I don’t doubt it.”

“Then what?”

“What would Sherlock say about your doing this?”

“I would say he’d be unhappy.”

“Understatement, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And he _will_ find out. He always does, sooner or later, does he not?”

“He’ll find out because I’m planning on telling him about it when I get home.”

“What will he do?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is, I’ll respect it. If he wants to dissolve our partnership, if he wants to end our friendship—I would be…devastated, but I would fully understand.”

“So you know what you’re getting into?” Jamie asked quietly.

“I do.”

Jamie nodded, her gaze still fixed out the window.

“I’m tired,” she said.

“All right,” Joan replied, getting up, fetching her purse. “I’ll let you rest, then. And I’ll come by tomorrow and tell you what I find out.”

“I didn’t mean that you should leave.”

“But I _should_ ,” Joan said, sitting down again, this time on the edge of the bed. She touched Jamie’s forehead; it was warm, but Joan could see they’d switched out the antibiotic hanging from the IV pole. “There are things I need to do, and you should sleep. You’ll feel better soon.”

Jamie sighed. Touched the lapel on Joan’s coat. Grabbed it and held on.

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

Joan looked down. There was a smear of blood there.

“It’s fine. I’ll have it cleaned.”

Jamie shook her head, adamant. “After I’ve left this place. After I’ve killed Lionel, and Wei, and whoever else is left–then I’ll buy you a coat. Something beautiful.”

“What you should do,” Joan replied, her voice low and measured, “is nothing. This is your chance to disappear. You could live your life anywhere, quietly. No more looking over your shoulder. You probably have enough money to do it, to avoid the police—"

Jamie tugged on her lapel, interrupted her with a brief kiss. “Oh, Watson,” she whispered, giving her a look that said _You don’t know me at all_. “I’ll tear them apart.”


	38. The Dead

Before vacating her modest hotel room and moving into the InterContinental that evening, Joan stopped at a wig shop, and bought the least ridiculous wig she could find—a red bob she accessorized with large, black sunglasses, black dress. The desk clerk gave her a curious look when she checked in and made no effort to take the glasses off. She wondered what he thought she was hiding. As he handed her a keycard, she lowered them, winked, and gave him a big smile. He smiled back, his cheeks coloring.

“Would you mind,” she said, leaning forward, forearms on the counter, fingers tapping against marble, “checking something for me?”

“Oh, of course, miss. What do you need?”

“I have a…friend…who is staying here. Or, she _was_. I’m not really sure. You see, she travels with a man, and that man is… intense... and, I don’t know, maybe a little erratic? So, I’d really rather not deal with him, or have him knowing I’m in contact with her. We have a special relationship and he doesn’t like it, you know?”

The clerk, who was a young man, probably in his early 20s, nodded and colored further when she stretched an arm out and touched his hand.

“Anyway, she gave me the name she registered under, and the code she wanted used whenever someone tried to contact her… I don’t want to put you in a tough spot, but do you think we could keep this between us? I just want to know if she’s still here, but I’m a little of scared of knocking on the door because I don’t want to find _him_ on the other side.”

“Oh, okay, I…” The clerk cleared his throat. “What’s the name?”

“Gretta Conroy. Her passphrase is ‘The Dead.’”

The man typed something up, scrolled, gazing quizzically at the monitor that was tilted so it was visible only to him.

When he looked up, he said, “She checked out. That is, she never signed out but the room was emptied and the man who accompanied her left the keycard at the front desk…two days ago.”

“Ah,” Joan said, feigning regret. “I’m sorry I missed her. But… are you sure the room was empty?”

He glanced back at the monitor. “That’s right.”

“Hmm. Well, I’m sure that’s not right, because she said she would leave something for me and… would it be possible to look? I mean, if it’s not an inconvenience. I’m pretty sure she left it. She would never lie to me.”

“Um.”

He thought about it, puffing his cheeks out and pursing his lips like the right thing to do would come to him if he made the right funny face. Joan kept on smiling at him as warmly as she could until he finally he let the air out of his cheeks and said, “I’ll get someone to take you up to your room, and then… I guess they can escort you to check Miss Conroy’s. But, really—it’s empty.”

“I appreciate it.”

A middle-aged man in uniform arrived a few minutes later. The clerk first spoke to him in clipped Cantonese, and then turned to Joan and said, “He’ll take your bags up, miss. And then he’ll take you to our Presidential Suite.”

To call the Presidential Suite grand would be understatement, but then Joan had become at least a little accustomed to the ways in which Moriarty preferred to live. The view of Victoria Harbor alone was stunning.

The bellhop took her up and stayed by the door as she toured the suite’s many rooms, pretending to conduct a sweeping search when, in reality, Moriarty had already told her where the cache was: in the bathroom’s air vent. While the bellhop waited, Joan went into the room, pulled a screwdriver from her skirt pocket, and got to work. In less than a minute, she’d found the thick, leather envelope and unzipped it so she could be sure everything Moriarty had said would be inside of it was: a large amount of cash—mostly Euros, with some Hong Kong and American dollars, as well— and an Australian passport with Jamie’s picture in it. She was looking directly at the camera, looking past it, almost, a placid smile on her face. This version of Moriarty called herself Sarah Wilcox.

When she’d secured the vent cover, Joan went to the door, holding the envelope, signaling her victory.

“I found it!” she said, grinning at the bellhop.

He blinked back at her.

“Done, miss?”

“Yes, I have what I needed.”

“Good,” he said, nonplussed. They got in the elevator, and he pressed the buttons to the fourth floor, which was her stop, and the lobby, which was, presumably, his.

Once inside her room, Joan pulled off the wig, tossed it and the envelope on the bureau, stripped out of her dress and took a long, long shower, pleased it had all gone so smoothly. Still feeling a thrum of excited energy, she braced herself on the shower wall and reached between her legs, thought of Jamie at the Peninsula, thought of her in ways they’d never been together. Future Jamie made Joan’s knees quake. When she came, she leaned back against the tile, still breathing hard, and laughed.

Later, she considered calling Sherlock, but fell asleep reading her botany forensics book instead.

Sometime in the middle of the night, there was a knocking at her door. It was loud, insistent. _Bang, bang, bang_. Joan shot into a sitting position, her heart racing. Without switching the lamp on, she got out of bed and tip-toed to the door. When she looked through the peephole, a man was staring back. He was white—light brown hair, beard, very tall. He knocked again, with balled fist instead of his knuckles. _Bang, bang, bang._

“Em?” he called. “Em, is that you in there? Lady Lazarus?”

_No_ , Joan thought. _Not Em._ M _. Moriarty_.

This was Lionel Winthrop.


	39. Lionel Winthrop

Lionel Winthrop put a hand against the door, leaned forward, his head cocked and tilted down, as though he were listening intently for sounds of life. Joan stared at him through the peephole, waiting for him to move, to speak again.

Eventually, he did: “How about a peace offering?” he asked, looking up again, at the peephole, as though he could see through it, see her as easily as she could him. “I spared your life, you know? Wei didn’t give me much of a choice. If I did you, I’d get to live; otherwise, it’d be the both of us. D’you understand? M? Ma'am?” When he braced himself on either side of the door, his jacket flared at the sides to reveal a holster. “Please, I’ve come to make amends.”

 _Amends. Right. That’s why you brought the gun_. Joan wondered what Moriarty would think of amends. Not much, probably. _I’ll tear them apart_ , she had said, and if Joan believed anything that came out of Moriarty’s mouth, she fully believed that. Whatever Lionel Winthrop was up to, making amends seemed an improbable next step. Even so, why bother saying it? Did he think he could fool Moriarty? Unlikely. Was he scared?

Trying to sound calm, Joan took several, deep breaths, and said, “You have the wrong room. I don’t know who you’re looking for, but I’m not her.”

His eyes narrowed as he pushed off and took a step away from the door.

He was no older than Jamie. Lean and tall, with a handsome, boyish face he tried to hide beneath his beard, he wasn’t too far past thirty. How long had he been with her? What was their relationship before she’d become, in essence, a crime boss and he her right-hand man? The questions roiled in Joan’s head, but she couldn’t do anything but keep them to herself. There were, after all, priorities.

“Please leave before I call the front desk and ask for security. This is my room, and I don’t know—"

“Who _are_ you?” Lionel asked, slowly, deliberately, moving once again towards the door. “My friend the bellhop told me he took you up to the Penthouse suite, and that you retrieved something from the room. What was it?” He waited, but when she didn’t answer, he turned around, paced half the length of the hall, until he disappeared from Joan’s view, and came around again with a vicious intensity, banging on the door as he said, “What did you take? Who _are you?_ ”

The violence of it made Joan start. During the course of her work with Sherlock, she’d been scared many times. Dead scared. Scared of tangible, immediate threats. Here, behind a locked door, a phone call away from safety, she was so scared her hands shook. She’d been a surgeon; her hands _never_ shook.

She looked away from Winthrop, gathered herself. “I’m calling security now,” she said.

And she would have, except it seemed one of the other guests had heard the commotion and beaten her to it because a few seconds later a small phalanx of security guards and hotel employees came down the hall and pulled Lionel from sight. Joan could still hear them talking to him in a hushed but urgent tone as they took him away.

A minute passed. Two. Joan shook her head, ran a hand through her hair. “Move,” she told herself. “Come on, Joan. Don’t freeze up.”

That broke the spell. She changed; packed quickly, tossing her clothing in her bag without folding a thing. Put on the wig. Grabbed Moriarty’s envelope. Ran, with her luggage, to the stairwell that was marked as an emergency exit. Before checking in, she’d studied the hotel’s configuration, and she knew there was a service area she could use to circumvent the lobby. She had to hope Lionel Winthrop was waiting at the front door, if he was waiting at all–Joan expected he would be. She exited the stairwell on the second floor, found a service elevator, and took it to ground level. When she got out, a nearby maintenance worker gave her a dirty look and yelled at her in Cantonese; she put her hands up, bags and all, and said, “Sorry, sorry” as she ran past him, toward the door which led into the laundry room. She kept running, ignoring the few workers who stopped to stare at her as she went, and finally found the door. She went out of it and into a brisk, drizzly night. Looked around. No Lionel, just men smoking by trash containers, others unloading a food truck. She doubled back, found an alley that led to Salisbury Road, and looked for a cab. At that hour, one was hard to come by, but after five minutes she managed to flag one down. She gave the driver the address to Tuen Mun Hospital.

“You okay?” the cabbie asked.

_God, what do I look like?_

She smiled at him, still a little breathless. “Fine,” she said. “Just… please hurry.”

If he noticed her turning this way and that to look out the windows in search of someone following, he didn’t mention it.

–-

She had to sneak into Jamie’s room.

It was either too late or too early for visiting hours, and the guard had refused to let her up, so Joan did what she had to do, which was leave her luggage, all but Moriarty’s envelope, in the waiting room, unattended, and go up to Jamie’s floor via the stairs. The nurses’ station was being supervised by one woman, and luckily she was snoozing lightly when Joan passed by.

Joan woke Jamie up with a soft shake of her shoulder.

Groggy as she was, Jamie quickly figured out it wasn’t a normal visit.

“What’s happened?”

“I got your things, but Lionel knows you’re alive. He doesn’t _know_ know, but I’m sure he’s figured it out. He knows I took something from your room, anyway.”

“Does he know it was you?”

“No. he probably thinks I’m helping you, but he doesn’t know who I am, or what I’m doing.”

“And you weren’t followed.”

“No. No, I was careful.”

“As careful as you were picking up my envelope?”

After all she’d endured in the past couple of hours, Joan’s temper went up like a tinderbox. “Are you fucking _kidding_ me?”

Jamie looked away, pursing her lips.

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding it. She sounded tired, and in pain. Joan almost felt sorry for her, but didn’t because Moriarty had put herself in this position. _She’d put herself here_.

“Fine.”

“Christ’s sake, I _am_ bloody sorry, but I’ve got to get out of here, Joan.”

“I know,” Joan answered. “And I’m here to help you do it.”


	40. Tiger, Tiger

Joan went downstairs, rifled quickly through her bag and found underwear; dark pants; a long black shirt; sneakers that would be too small but good enough until they had time to buy a pair of shoes that fit, and were to Jamie’s liking. Joan would give her the one jacket she’d brought, and they’d deal with whatever came next on their way to the airport.

The next step was stealing gauze, tape, antibiotics, painkillers—whatever provisions she would need to keep Jamie going, and her wound clean and infection-free. Joan found a supply room locked, but she had her picks with her and was able to open it quickly enough. Again, she thanked her stars for the dozing nurse, and for the lucky break she had when a passing doctor turned just the right way as Joan left the room with a bundle of contraband stored in the front of her shirt, which she’d stretched to use as a makeshift pouch.

Back in her room, Jamie had already found the strength to sit up, though she hadn’t yet managed to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. Joan helped her—disconnected the IV, sorted the tangle of tubes wrapped around her arm and torso, helped her take off her robe. It was slow going, getting her into street clothes, and Jamie winced and gritted her teeth when she had to raise her arms; teetered and blanched when she had to stand up. Her hands shot out, grabbed at Joan’s shoulders, squeezed as she held on, swaying. But she was determined, as determined as Joan had expected she would be.

“It’s not going to be easy,” she said, stowing the stolen supplies in the hospital tote that contained Jamie’s old clothes. “But we’ll take as long as you need.”

There was no way Jamie would make it down the stairs, so they chose to take the elevator down; at that point, it didn’t really matter who saw them anyway. The hospital wouldn’t be able to keep Jamie against her will.

It was still an excruciating walk. Jamie, wobbly on her sea legs, had to stop every few feet, one hand holding her side, arm around Joan’s shoulders, braced for support. She was sweating by the time they reached the elevator, and as soon as they stepped inside she leaned heavily into one corner, her eyes closing as she drew one hard breath after another.

“Are you all right?”

Jamie’s head bobbed up and down, but Joan knew better, knew that Jamie was tremendously weak, that every step brought with it a set of challenges no healthy person ever worried about.

“I thought this might happen to me, someday. One tries to prepare oneself, but it’s unimaginable, really.”

“It could have been worse,” Joan offered, with all the tact of a former surgeon, knowing Moriarty would dismiss sympathetic prattle, anyway.

With a rough, humorless laugh, Jamie replied, “Yes” just as the elevator dinged its arrival at the main lobby.

Joan had picked up her luggage and they were shuffling towards the exit when the security guard finally noticed them, giving them a long, confused look before approaching.

“You’ve been discharged?” he asked Jamie.

“Yes.”

“At this hour? Where is your wheelchair?”

“I preferred to walk.”

He seemed completely unconvinced as he left them; maybe he’d gone to check on the veracity of Jamie’s story, but they’d be long gone by the time he discovered the truth. Either way, it didn’t matter.

Outside, it was sprinkling. Joan put her jacket around Jamie’s shoulders and told her to wait by the entrance while she fetched a cab. There were two waiting nearby, and Joan waved one over to pick up the luggage, and Jamie.

“What is your destination?” the driver asked, once they were all inside the car. Jamie kept one hand tucked underneath the front of the jacket; and Joan imagined she was probing her wound. She looked faint.

“The airport,” Joan said.

“No,” Jamie said. “I need to clean up.”

“Cleaning up can wait. And you can get clothes at any duty-free shop—”

“ _Please_.”

Joan looked at the driver. “One of the hotels near the airport, then; whichever’s closest.”

–

They booked a double at the SkyCity Marriott for the night.

First thing, Jamie asked to shower, and Joan had to devise a way to keep her gauze dry by tearing apart a plastic bag and taping it to her torso.

“When can I expect to be less useless?” Jamie asked, as Joan helped her step into the shower.

“Soon. You’re past the worst of it.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“I know. Hold on to the wall, okay? I’ll get in with you,” Joan replied as she stripped and got inside; the water was a few degrees hotter than she usually liked.

“Our first shower together,” Jamie said dryly. “I would have preferred something a bit sexier, but your playing nurse must have some advantages? The view is lovely, at any rate.”

Joan laughed. “Thanks,” she said, and got to work. When they were nearly done shampooing Jamie’s hair, she asked, “So, what’s next? You need time to convalesce.”

“First thing’s first. I need to figure out my financial situation. We go to Switzerland. I can rest there, anyhow.”

“And then?” Joan asked, as they finished rinsing off. She turned the faucet, and the water flow drip-dripped to a stop.

“And then,” Jamie said, as Joan helped her towel dry, “I’m not certain. I get Lionel. I get Wei. I kill whoever else needs killing… Don’t look at me that way.”

“You know what I think.”

“Yes, and our views differ on that matter. I won’t slink off and hide, Watson.”

“You should know,” Joan said, “that when Lionel thought it was you in that hotel room, he was pretty hell bent on apologizing. He said he had saved your life. That Wei hadn’t given him a choice.”

“He’s scared,” Jamie said dispassionately.

“Well, that’s what I thought, but he’s got a point about not killing you.”

“Either way, he’s picked a side, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah, but whether or not there’s a war is up to you.”

When the conversation drew to an end, Joan checked Jamie’s gauze, then loaned her a pair of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt she could sleep in. Not long after getting in her bed, she was out. Joan stayed up a while longer, reading her book. Every once in a while, she looked over at Jamie, who looked different, somehow, in sleep.

The way a tiger looks when it slumbers.


	41. Old Wounds

Jamie was still asleep when Joan called Sherlock.

He answered, as always, within two rings; Joan imagined him up, working. Always working.

“Watson?”

“Sherlock, yeah it’s me. Hi.”

“How is Claire?”

“Oh, she’s…okay. She’s fine. Or, she will be. Listen, I just, you know, I wanted to check in and make sure everything was all right on your end. Anything interesting going on?”

“Cases stack up. Murders abound, Watson. Nothing Detective Bell and I can’t handle.”

That stung, a little.

“Really?”

“Your acumen is sorely missed, but we persevere. He’s a man of considerable wit, Marcus Bell, but he isn’t you, now is he?”

Joan clutched the phone as she glanced over at Jamie. She was lying on her back, her eyelids fluttering with REM sleep.

“Sherlock, I wanted to tell you that… What I mean, is—”

“It’s fine, Watson. Whatever it is, you can tell me when you’ve come home. You are coming home, are you not?”

_He knows_ , Joan thought, chilled by the prospect, though she hadn’t bothered covering her tracks. The Claire story, there was nothing believable about it. Claire Watson was safe and sound in California, finishing a writing MFA. _He knows who I’m with and he’s letting me see it through. He_ trusts _me to see it through._

“Of course.”

“And you’re all right?”

“I… Yes, I am.”

“Good. Do remember to take care of yourself—and that, whatever contingencies arise, I am but a phone call away. ” He paused, and Joan heard a soft but unmistakable sigh. “Truly. _Anything_ you need. Do you understand, Joan?”

_Joan._ For a moment, she couldn’t answer. A hard lump had wedged in her throat and she was afraid Sherlock would hear it. She swallowed it down as best she could and said, “Yes. Thanks. Thank you, Sherlock. Um, I’ll check in again, okay?”

“Good-bye, Watson.”

Joan stared at the phone long after the dial tone had become her only companion. When she looked up, Jamie was awake and gazing back at her.

“All right?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

Nodding, Joan put the phone down and got out of bed.

“You?”

“Every single part of me hurts. I feel completely battered.”

“That’s because you were in bed for days. As long as you’re careful with your wound, the more you move, the less you’ll ache.”

“I know it,” Jamie replied wearily, holding a hand out so that Joan could help her sit up. She did so with little more than a whimper. “Was that Sherlock?”

“It was.”

“Anything I should know?”

“Nope.”

Moriarty raised an eyebrow, but after a moment she let it go and said, “Get dressed. I’ll ring the airlines and try to get us out sometime today. And then—breakfast? I’m famished.”

—

It was good that Jamie had regained her appetite, and after eating a substantial breakfast, she did seem stronger, ready to resume whatever plans she’d already begun devising. Plans she hadn’t shared, but that Joan was sure were there, in her mind—ripening.

At the airport, Moriarty tore through duty-free, buying an expensive suitcase, and enough clothing, shoes, and toiletries to fill it. By the time she’d done her hair and makeup, and changed into one of the suits she’d bought, she looked more like the Moriarty Joan had first encountered (not Irene, _Moriarty_ ): beautiful, well-dressed, self-assured. _Deadly._

They found a flight out to Zurich that evening, and even though Joan told her it was stupid to splurge, Moriarty bought first-class tickets, telling her, “I’ve got the money, Watson, and there’s more of it,” as if that were always true, for everyone.

In any event, she was right. Enduring a 13 hour flight in economy, in her condition, when she could afford to pay for first-class, made little sense. Joan saw that first hand when, only a few hours in, Jamie noticeably lost some of the vigor she’d exhibited early in the day and began clutching her side. And though she didn’t complain, it was clear enough she was in pain.

“Come on,” Joan said. “I need to look at you, and I need to change the dressing.”

Together they crammed into the bathroom, getting a curious look from a businessman who briefly stopped whatever he was doing on his laptop in order to give them a lecherous smile.

Joan rolled her eyes at him and closed the door.

When Jamie had finished unbuttoning her blouse, Joan washed her hands and peeled back the heavy gauze that covered her wound.

“It’s healing well,” Joan said. “No sign of infection. You were really lucky this was the extent of the trauma.”

“If I hear how lucky I am one more time…” Jamie said, nonplussed.

Joan smiled to herself, unzipped her makeshift kit full of stolen hospital goods, and gently cleaned the area, changed the dressing.

When she was done, her gaze strayed up to Jamie’s shoulder. There was scar tissue there, and as she looked at it, Jamie said, “Remember that old thing?”

Of course Joan did. She reached up and, with tentative fingers, traced the discolored skin.

“Will you always fix my wounds?” Jamie asked.

Joan brought her hand down, looked at Jamie, but said nothing as she buttoned up. As soon as she was done, Joan turned to open the door, to leave, to get some air, but was stopped by Jamie’s hand on hers. She gripped it, tightly, and said, as sincerely as Joan had ever heard her, “ _Thank you_.”

And Joan? Joan leaned up and kissed her.

It was a soft, questioning kiss. A kiss of what-if’s and could-be’s. A kiss that ended having answered nothing about their predicament, about the war inside Joan’s heart. It said, simply, _I shouldn’t, but I want you anyway.  
_


	42. [Interlude #10]

Jamie dreamed.

And in her dream her father was the man she had known as a child—a man with cold blue eyes and a patrician nose, his blond hair streaked with grey; an athlete, lean and muscular; distant. Busy, always busy. Her brother James was fifteen, then—tall and skinny and curly-haired. He smiled always, even when he didn’t mean it. Even when he was crying. His was a face worthy of Raphael. Her mother—absent. Gone to live in Marrakesh or Sao Paulo or Mumbai or Brisbane or Manila or Veracruz. Jamie kept a map in her room and every time she received a letter she marked the city of origin with a pin. When the letters stopped coming, she burned the map.

They took holiday in the Swiss Alps, always, spending so much of their time there that Jamie believed her German came from the maids and the caretakers she dutifully followed around their Bernese estate. The cook, a tiny slip of an old woman Jamie only ever knew as Nana, taught her French.

Herr Moriarty was an avid skier, whilst his son preferred climbing. Jamie stayed indoors, reading and painting. In the dead of winter, she would stand barefoot—feet, trousers, and smock splashed with hues of red, violet, yellow, gold, copper. The skin on her thumb creased where she held the palette. One year she painted James in the style of Modigliani; and when he sat for her, she had to admonish him into seriousness. The portrait was now stored in a warehouse, lost in a sea of old relics that conjured unpleasant memories.

She dreamed now of the Aareschlucht; of funiculars rising into the mountains; of the sky, a shade of blue so bright it was blinding; of waterfalls, countless waterfalls, and of how she would watch them in search of rainbows, the spectrum of light opening itself up to her as she longed for canvas and brush. How she had loved those winters.

Now she dreamed of Joan Watson. Of painting the resistance in her eyes each time they kissed; or maybe the bend and snap as it gave way, a rubberband stretched too far; or the curve of her mouth as it admitted defeat, lips parted and waiting; or the back of her knee, the slope of her belly, the jut of her hipbone. If only she could paint the softness of her thighs, or the taste of her sweat.

She dreamed of her father’s wild despairing, his hair now white and pulled back with gnarled fingers; he was old before his time, calling out for his vanished wife and his son, swallowed by a mountain. Calling for a daughter who had cold blue eyes and was now busy, far too busy, to heed his sorrow.

She dreamed of Sherlock Holmes’s knees buckling when his love rose from the dead.

She dreamed of the Reichenbachfall, of looking down 250 metres into nothing only to awaken with her head pressed to a window that opened up to a sky so bright it was blinding. Without looking, Jamie reached for the woman beside her, her hand finding Joan’s knee. A moment later, Joan’s warm fingers covered hers.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Were you dreaming?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“That medicine produces vivid dreams. I should have warned you.”

“We should go to Bern.”

“Excuse me?”

“After Zurich. Would you go with me? I’ve a house there. A house no one knows about. An old family home long gone to ruin, no doubt. Would you?”

Joan squeezed her hand.

Jamie closed her eyes, and drifted again.

She dreamed of the Reichenbachfall.


	43. LX 139

While Jamie slept, Joan brought out her laptop and checked her email.

Sherlock had sent her various messages, but all avoided any questions about her personal situation and contained only links to articles and sites he thought would be beneficial to her growth as an investigator. For example, one was to the site for a Krav Maga class taught by a woman Sherlock had hinted was ex-Mossad. Another was devoted specifically to the varying toxicities of mushrooms, a minor corollary to the book she was reading on botany forensics. The last was a purchase link to a series of DVDs on blood-splatter analysis. Beneath that he’d written the morbidly gleeful: “I’ve bought you an early Christmas present!”

Her mother had sent an invitation to dinner that was now four days past due. Joan replied she was sorry she’d missed the message, and dinner, but she was currently out of country on business, which was partly true.

An e-mail from Oren contained several pictures of her nephew, and a question pertaining to the efficacy of a certain food fad. Joan replied that he needed to eat balanced meals so that he wouldn’t have to worry about sprinkling chia seeds on his yogurt. And, “Kiss the baby for me.”

After that, she checked several newspaper sites, caught up on world news. Clicked over to the sports’ section. Sighed at the Jets.

Meanwhile, Jamie slept on.

Two-third into the flight, Joan realized she’d gotten her period and was thankful she’d remembered to pack tampons. She went to the bathroom, passed by the leering businessman, who was now hunched over his laptop, headphones on, his tie askew and his shirtsleeves rolled up. As she passed him and tried to see what he was watching, he quickly lowered the lid. Joan’s surmisal: porn.

And she thought, as she went back to her seat, and put away her computer to read the new Hilary Mantel, it was funny that what was making her least uncomfortable in that moment was Jamie’s presence. Jamie, who was carrying around a fake passport that would require a similarly fake Australian accent when they went through customs. Moriarty, who was a wanted fugitive; who had killed people and made love to her and who now, more than ever, was an enigma.

Given the opportunity, Joan kept her book closed a while longer and watched Jamie sleep. Her color had improved, and it seemed her nightmares had stopped plaguing her. When Joan pushed a strand of hair away from her face and touched her, she found no fever. A strange relief welled up inside of her. Although, empirically, there was no information to suggest Jamie’s condition would worsen, and as a doctor, as a _detective_ , Joan knew signs pointed to a full recovery, she still worried. Worried the way she would over her Mom, or Oren. The way she would over Sherlock. The way she would over anyone she loved.

And _that_ thought had come so far out of left field, it staggered her. She sat there, book in her lap, and stared at Jamie’s slack face, willing her to wake up. Willing her to wake up and be Moriarty again. Moriarty, whom Joan could never love.

_Don’t be an idiot. They’re one and the same._

For an hour, on and off, Joan ruminated on it, staring at the words in her novel, trying to concentrate on the flow of sentences before her gaze invariably found its way back to Jamie, who remained in her dream world, who wouldn’t have cared either way. _What would she say?_ Joan thought. _Would she think it’s funny?_

Finally, when the flight attendants began preparing for the meal service, Joan touched Jamie’s arm.

“Hey,” she said, shaking her. “Hey, come on, you should eat.”

Slowly, Jamie opened her eyes, looking back at her with a dopey, punch-drunk smile. Whatever dream she’d been having this time, it had probably been a good one.

“Joan,” Jamie said, her smile twisting into a familiar curve as she shook off the fog of sleep. “Have I slept for days, then?”

“Almost.”

“The pills?”

Joan nodded, repeated, “You should eat.”

“Yeah, I need the loo first,” Jamie said, attempting to stand. Joan got up to help her.

“Want me to take you?”

“I can manage, I think. Slow and steady.”

Joan stood up to let her by, grabbed her by the elbow when she wobbled.

“I’ll stand out here if you need anything,” she said, following her to the bathroom.

Jamie went inside, and while Joan waited, she saw the businessman was staring at her again, wearing the same ugly grin.

“So,” he said, sucking on his teeth, eyebrows wagging.

“ _No_.”

“I didn’t say—“

“Look, buddy, if you’re trying to start something, be prepared for a drink in your face.”

The drink cart was, in fact, making its way down their aisle.

“Geez, you people can’t take compliments, can you?”

“ _Excuse_ _me_?”

Just then the bathroom door opened and Jamie came out.

She looked at the man. “Is there a problem?” she asked.

“No,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “You and your little girlfriend can go and take a seat.”

Jamie straightened. “Oh? Can we?”

Then, she approached the man, bent close to his ear and whispered something Joan could not hear. Whispered for so long, Joan’s imagination began running wild. Whatever she was saying, the man’s face went ashen, and as soon as Jamie stopped he looked at Joan and apologized.

When they were back in their seats, Joan asked, “What the hell did you say to him? Are we going to get arrested when we land?”

Jamie smiled. “I was merely being creative. Men like him think they rule the world, when in fact they can’t even control their flaccid, little cocks.”

“Ha. Amen.”

“Although I admit, I would’ve enjoyed watching you throw a drink in his smarmy face, _that_ might have had us arrested; and we can’t exactly have that, now can we?”

Laughing, Joan replied, “You’re a bad influence.”

“Dear Watson, am I?”

Joan looked at Jamie. Really looked at her. A strange knot formed in her stomach. She breathed through it.

“The worst.”


	44. Mountains

Despite having firsthand knowledge of the scope of Moriarty’s operations, and of the ruthless intelligence she had needed to build them up, Joan was still astounded by the way Jamie breezed through Swiss customs, entirely confident as she embodied the identity on her fake passport—despite the possible disastrous consequences of being found out.

“Is it always this easy for you?”

“They look at me,” Moriarty said archly, “and they see someone of means, not a criminal. I act the way they’d like me to act, and give them no reason to suspect me of anything at all.”

“And having grace and charm, and good looks—that doesn’t hurt?”

Never one for false humility, Moriarty tilted her head and smiled coyly, taking Joan by the arm as they strode out of the airport—Joan pulling along her Samsonite and laptop case, _and_ Jamie’s Louis Vuitton, her leather envelope still fat with cash, her convincing Australian passport…

“So… how much money did you lose?” Joan asked, as they waited for a car.

Moriarty gave her a blank stare.

Joan persisted: “The hostile takeover in Hong Kong—how much did that cost you?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing? That can’t be true.”

“No? My money is in private accounts, Watson. The organization had its own assets, of course, but those were kept separate. If you mean, how much did I lose in terms of future earnings, well that sum is incalculable at the moment. The question is: how long will an enterprise now headed by a fool who can’t be bothered to check whether his chief rival has, in fact, been eliminated, be able to sustain itself? Not long, I’d wager. So, you see, Watson, Wei and Lionel cost me nothing, whereas you, my sweet, lost me a billion dollars. If money were what really drives me, you’d be dead.”

While there was nothing threatening about the way Jamie said it, Joan knew she had struck a nerve. Maybe it wasn’t about the money, but the money represented everything Jamie had been single-mindedly working towards all of her adult life—power, influence.

“I’m not trying to needle, I just thought… I don’t know, Jamie. You have an opportunity to choose another life. And, before you say it, I _know_. I know that it’s not about the money for you; I understand that you’re after something…bigger…but it doesn’t have to be _that_ for you. I’ve said it before, but I think it bears repeating.”

Jamie looked away, didn’t say anything for a minute, or longer. When she turned back to Joan, the car had arrived. She said, airily, like it meant nothing, “It’s too late for me, darling,” and got into the car without another word. Joan didn’t try to revive the conversation. Maybe Jamie was right. There was, after all, no rectifying, no undoing what had been done.

They checked into the Widder Hotel, which was lovely, and luxurious in a much less intense way than their previous accommodations. Joan was used to, even preferred, Spartan living; while at college and, later, medical school, she’d thrived in bare-bones digs. The apartment she’d had before moving into Sherlock’s brownstone, for instance, had really only been decorated once her mother had interfered. Work had always been the priority; living quarters secondary. Joan was not an ascetic by any stretch—she enjoyed shopping, for clothes and for rare, fine things— but Moriarty's lifestyle was sometimes overwhelming.

Jamie asked her if she wanted her own room, and while Joan wasn’t used to sharing tight quarters, she’d gotten used to Sherlock’s frequent breaks with decorum. Privacy was at a premium at the brownstone, and so living in a double with Jamie for a few days didn’t really seem like much of a sacrifice. Besides, “You still need me.”

“Do I?” Jamie replied, tempering the question with a smile.

But once they were inside the room, and Jamie was undressing for a shower, she told Joan, “You said I was past the worst of it. If ever you felt you needed to leave, I would hope you’d tell me so.”

Joan, who was exhausted and terminally jet-lagged and had flopped onto one of the beds the minute the bellhop left, said, “I’m not exactly here against my will.”

“An interesting turn of phrase, Watson.”

“ _Fine_. I’m here because I want to be here, Jamie. Come on, let’s not— Just, let me look at that.” Jamie hesitated a moment before crossing the room to let Joan pull back the gauze covering her wound. “I’ll change it after you get out, okay? If you need help—”

“I’ll be all right,” Jamie murmured, turning away, towards the bathroom. She was at the door when she turned around, her robe bunched in her hands. “You won’t want to be here for what’s next, Joan. _I_ don’t want you here for it.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t, either. Maybe I think I can stop it. I have to try.”

“You can’t, and you shouldn’t try to get in my way,” Jamie replied, though there wasn’t anything hard about the way she said it. She seemed resigned; resolute.

“I don’t want to get in your way, or play a game with you, but—”

“Whatever you’re thinking of, don’t. I was lost to you long before I met you. _This_ is who I am, Joan, and if you’re looking for some romantic version of me, there isn’t one.”

And, there, something broke inside of Joan, an angry desire for something she hadn’t known she’d wanted. Not for the woman Moriarty was talking about, but simply for Jamie—a woman she didn’t even know.

“I’m just trying to keep you from getting yourself killed.”

“I assure you,” Jamie said, giving Joan her back. “I won’t be the one who dies.”


	45. In Dreams

There were certain things Moriarty insisted on doing alone. For instance, the outing she took three days after they arrived, which ended that afternoon when she showed up at their room with several shopping bags. Her purchases? Three phones and a laptop. And while Joan raised her eyebrows at _three phones_ , and what their presence signified, Jamie didn’t feel the need to explain anything whatsoever. She let Joan stew in the unsaid: Moriarty was already forging ahead with the resumption of her criminal endeavors.

After that, the weeks crawled by—everything they did was slow and measured, and had about it an air of electric calm. Each meal was taken at a different restaurant, and they walked at leisure through the city afterward, looking for nothing in particular, always finding something that captured their mutual attention. In the Kunstahaus Zurich, Jamie had something to say about every painting they encountered; her knowledge was vast, detailed. Fuseli’s _Titania and Bottom_ enraptured her, and she spent minutes transfixed, lost in the image. That night, when she awoke from a nightmare, she blamed the painting.

“That ass’s head,” she said, laughing at her own discomfort, at the sweat beading her brow, at her labored breathing. “What a stupid thing to be frightened of.”

Joan, who had gotten out of bed to shake her out of her dream, pushed her hair from her face, tried to soothe away the frown that hadn’t vanished upon waking.

“We can cut down on the pain medication. I think you’ll be all right, and the vivid dreams—”

“I stopped taking it when we arrived,” Jamie confessed, her voice still gruff from sleep. “This is all me, I’m afraid.”

“You— Why?”

“It made me feel a bit fuzzy, and I didn’t like that. And, frankly, the dreams _were_ more intense, and less abstract than I like. This… Well, at least I’m used to this.”

“Is it a regular thing? Have you always had trouble sleeping?”

“I sleep like a baby. It’s the bloody dreaming that gets me, Watson.”

Joan took a moment to consider that, watching as Jamie’s chest rose and fell more evenly. Seeing how long it was taking her to calm down—the dream must have scared her horribly.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Years,” Jamie replied dismissively, wearily. “Many, many years.”

“Was there a trigger?”

“Please don’t attempt to psychoanalyze me; I don’t think you’re qualified.”

Something in Jamie’s flippant tone made Joan angry.

“So when you were playing at being Irene—those dreams she was having, those nightmares—you really knew what you were doing.”

Jamie’s eyes narrowed instantly, and she pushed Joan’s hand away with a grunt of displeasure, throwing aside the blanket as she got out of the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“To get some water,” Jamie said peevishly, snatching her hand away when Joan reached for it.

“Hey.” Joan followed her to the bathroom, watched as she filled a glass straight from the tap and drank. “Hey, you don’t get to be pissed off when I bring that up. The things you do have consequences, Jamie.”

The glass empty, Jamie placed it on the counter next to the sink. She moved carefully, deliberately, as she set it down, then crossed the distance to Joan, whose arms were crossed, who was still stupidly, irrationally angry.

Jamie was angry, too. Joan could see it in the way her nostrils flared, in the rigid set of her shoulders as she walked. When she was close enough, she took Joan by the hair—not hard, but surprising, and the brief pull as Jamie pushed her against the wall did sting—and pressed their foreheads together. They were both so angry Joan could feel it coursing between them—though there was something else there, too. Something that was always there, just beneath the surface. Something that kept Joan running straight to Jamie even when she knew she shouldn’t.

And she knew Jamie felt it, too, because a moment later she sighed angrily, tilted her head and kissed her. Kissed her like she was giving in. Kissed her like she had no choice. It was unrelenting, demanding, made Joan breathless in a matter of seconds. They grabbed at one another, holding tight, and Joan accidentally reached for Jamie’s side. When she touched her there, Jamie jerked, hissing through her teeth one moment, biting at Joan’s throat the next.

“We shouldn’t,” Joan said, or tried to say. It sounded garbled, almost—like she couldn’t quite make herself say the words. “You’re still hurt. And, besides, we’re…angry.”

Jamie slumped, her face against Joan’s shoulder. Joan could feel her breathing, hot and fast, into her shirt. Her fingers were curled around Joan’s hips, wrapped around her hair.

“I’m not angry,” she said, her grip slackening.

“It feels angry.”

“I’ve just—I lost my head for a moment, that’s all. You took me by surprise, and I wanted you. All at once, I wanted you.”

“I lose myself,” Joan admitted. Right then, she felt she could. “When I’m with you.”

“Mm.” Jamie nodded, moved so that her cheek was against Joan’s. “But that’s not so terrible, is it?” Then, very quietly, “Me, too.”

“Why were we fighting again?” Joan asked.

“Frustration,” Jamie answered, kissing either corner of Joan’s mouth, her chin.

“Whose?”

“You’re frustrated I won’t simply do as you say. I’m frustrated I can’t simply send you away—because I don’t want to. That’s a problem I didn’t foresee. You’re a problem, Joan, and I haven’t a solution. I suspect it’s the same for you.”

“What do we do?”

“I’m going to Bern, to my family’s estate. Tomorrow, I think.”

“And you— You still want me to go with you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s there? What’s at that house?”

“Nothing. No ghosts. No secrets. Just a house, Watson.”

“Now you’re lying.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah,” Joan said, her hand on the side of Jamie’s face as she searched her eyes for something, anything that might give her away. “But it doesn’t matter. One day—one day you’ll tell me.” _I’ll figure it out. I’ll figure you out. The human being inside of you—I have her. I’m holding her._

And that was Joan’s lie. The lie she told herself. The lie she thought she could live with: that Jamie Moriarty would reveal herself, and that it would explain everything.

Jamie kissed her again—it was a long, careful kiss. It wasn’t an answer, but it was enough.


	46. All Theory Is Gray

They did not leave for Bern as scheduled because, although Jamie had called ahead to ensure a small team was making the Moriarty estate livable, there seemed to be a contretemps with the furnace. It had not yet snowed, but the air was bracingly cold, and Jamie predicted it would be a matter of a week or two before it did.

“No point in being wretchedly uncomfortable, is there?”

It was then that Jamie also decided Joan needed clothes—not just because she’d only packed for a week, at most, but because she had not packed for the kind of winter weather that awaited them.

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable with you buying me things,” Joan admitted.

“But you have need of them, and I’m happy to indulge you.”

“I’m not sure I want to be indulged.”

Jamie smiled at that. They were getting ready to go out for breakfast and she’d just stepped out of the shower. It was the first morning since they’d fled Hong Kong she seemed fully energized—almost whole. She wore a red silken robe she must’ve purchased at the airport, cinched tight, and as she bent to towel dry her hair, it gaped at her chest. Joan wondered when she had become the kind of woman who _stares_ ; who _wants._

“I did promise you a coat, didn’t I, Watson?”

“Jamie, I can buy my own clothes.”

“I’m well aware of that, but why deny me the pleasure? And it _would_ be my pleasure, Joan. You’ll need a gown, too,” Jamie said.

“A gown? What for?”

“I’m taking you to the opera. _Faust_ is premiering on Sunday. We can stay through till Monday morning, and that should give the workers enough time to repair the heating situation at the house. What say you, Watson? Will you be my date? You haven’t seen it, have you?”

“ _Faust_? No.”

“Neither have I. It would be a first for us both, then. Please, don’t make me beg.”

Joan laughed.

“ _Beg?_ Why would I say no?”

“Because you live to thwart me, while I live to please you—though now and again, you do throw me a crumb of affection.”

Rolling her eyes, Joan shook her head.

“That’s funny. Since when do you live to please me?”

Jamie’s was a soundless laugh.

“Oh, was that hyperbole on my part?” she asked, draping her towel across the nearest chair, crossing over to Joan. Her hair was still damp, and as she wrapped her arm around Joan’s waist and backed her up against the wall, Joan thought she smelled lilacs. “Good of you to walk around in your underwear all morning, by the way. Underwear and—librarian glasses.”

“I was, um, just reading an article.”

Or, rather, emailing an Interpol acquaintance to ask about Lionel Winthrop—not that Jamie needed to know that.

“In your underwear?”

“I was in the middle of getting dressed and remembered I wanted to look something up,” Joan replied, feeling her face grow warm.

“It isn’t a complaint, darling,” Jamie said, still smiling, her hand at Joan’s waist, thumb slipping under elastic to press against Joan’s hipbone. She dipped her head and pressed a few, glancing kisses to Joan’s shoulder, then to her throat. “You’ve a beautiful body, and I like looking at it… So?” she murmured.

“Hm?”

“The opera, Watson. We have a few days to kill. It might be worthwhile to do something other than laze away the time in this room—fun as that may be.”

The kisses turned open-mouthed, lazy. Jamie’s tongue traced an errant path from Joan’s clavicle up the side of her neck; her chest hitched when Jamie’s lips wrapped around her earlobe, tugged lightly, released it before meandering back down her throat.

“Sure. Why not?”

“I didn’t think that you would refuse,” Jamie replied, as she lowered one of Joan’s bra straps and kissed her shoulder. “But it _is_ rather polite to ask, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know—I’ve always thought of you as someone who takes what she wants without asking.”

Jamie just laughed roughly against the hollow of Joan’s throat; her lips slid wetly to Joan’s pulse and she sucked at it lightly, briefly.

It was in these strangely intimate moments that questions reared up in Joan’s head. Now it was, “Who are you?” Or, “Do I know you at all?” She wanted to believe—and it would have embarrassed her, for anyone to know just how desperately—that she did; that she knew at least some aspect of Jamie, that she’d reached in and touched some secret part of her nobody knew.

All that she could really do was take Jamie’s head between her hands, pull it back enough to look her in the eyes. Jamie’s gaze was sharp, but it softened at whatever it was she saw on Joan’s face; she asked, quietly, “What is it?”

“Say it again.”

“Say what?”

“That you live to please me.”

A pause. A flash of a smile that vanished quickly. “I live to please you,” Jamie repeated, her voice low and throaty. When they kissed, the back of Joan’s head found the wall and a rush of air left her lungs; Jamie licked into her mouth in the same moment she reached into Joan’s underwear.

“Oh,” she whispered with a measure of surprise, her lips still brushing against Joan’s mouth as her fingers slid between her legs. “Ready, then?”

Joan couldn’t quite answer. When Jamie thrust into her, the noise she made came from a place she didn’t know; from some deep, guttural location she’d never visited. Jamie, meanwhile, was looking at her like she wanted to eat her alive.

“Dear Watson,” she murmured, dipping her head. Her breath was hot against Joan’s ear; her hand moved in a hard, steady rhythm. “ _Joan_.”

Joan closed her eyes, exhaling loudly; trembling. She’d wrapped her fingers around Jamie’s arms, gripping them so tightly her nails pressed into skin. Jamie’s body was now flush with hers except for the space where her arm moved, back and forth. Joan whimpered with each sweep of Jamie inside of her. Gasped when her fingers skated up, one on either side of her clit, to rub until she was a quivering, crying mess. It was then that Jamie moved into her again, then that Joan came, her teeth sunk in Jamie’s shoulder.

They held onto one another, didn’t move, for a full minute.

When they did finally break apart, Joan didn’t know what to say. Or she did, but couldn’t. The words that were stuck in her throat had no place in that room.

Jamie watched her carefully; licked her fingers clean. Kissed her in the next moment with a possessiveness Joan wasn’t expecting.

“Good?” she asked.

Joan smiled at all the arrogance Jamie had managed to lay out with one word.

“Pretty good,” she replied.

Jamie smiled back.

“ _Pretty_ good? Fine, I suppose I’ll have to do better later. Go, shower. We’re late for breakfast, and I’m suddenly starving.”

Reluctantly, Joan pushed away from the wall, her legs still somewhat wobbly. She was halfway to the bathroom when Jamie called out to her.

“Joan?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s time for us. Here, I mean. Don’t you think so?”

“I hope so,” Joan answered, swallowing thickly, as much of an admission as anything could be. “I hope so, Jamie.”


	47. [Interlude #11]

“It was beautiful,” Joan said.

They were in the back of a taxi, on their way to the hotel from the Opernhaus Zürich. Side by side they sat, their heads against the seat, Jamie’s hand under Joan’s coat, resting on her back. She slowly ran her fingers over bare skin, again and again, thinking it was a shame it was so cold out; Joan’s backless gown was exquisite and she hated for it to be covered up.

“ _You_ were beautiful,” Jamie said, enjoying the way a blush bloomed on Joan’s cheeks. “But, yes, lovely. The soprano was especially good, I thought. Her version of the _Jewel Song_ far surpassed my expectations.”

“I thought you’d never seen _Faust_?”

“No, but I’ve heard it many times. It was my father’s favourite.”

“Oh.”

Joan looked like she wanted to say more, ask questions, as though Jamie bringing up her father had been an invitation. It hadn’t been, not really, but Jamie was in a giving mood that evening, and if Joan asked, she might just answer.

“How often would you come here? To Switzerland, I mean?”

“Every year. Sometimes we would come as early as September, before the funiculars closed for winter—I never went up on one. Terrified of heights. My brother…” She realised what it meant, mentioning James, but she allowed herself the indulgence. Allowed the fond and awful memories to overtake her as completely as Marguerite’s aria had done. “Well, he loved to climb—but you know that.”

Joan was quiet for a bit. Jamie could see her working out how to proceed. This was delicate territory, Jamie supposed.

Joan changed subjects, instead, veering away from James; it was a clever move, one Jamie appreciated. His death sometimes felt like a fresh wound, and it wouldn’t do for Joan to see that.

“So what’s to do in Bern?”

Jamie smiled at the question, mostly because of the way Joan presented it—as though they were a couple going on holiday for the first time.

“Do you ski?” Jamie asked.

“I haven’t in years, but I wasn’t all that bad when I was younger.”

“One imagines there is little at which you don’t excel, once you’ve put your mind to it.”

Joan’s smile took on a far-off quality; Jamie wondered if she was reliving old glories. “I was pretty good,” she said, laughing. “Competitive, you know?”

“I know,” Jamie said simply, brushing Joan’s hair away from her ear so she could place a kiss at the apex of her jaw, to the place that made her shiver every time Jamie set her lips upon it.

“ _How_ do you know?” Joan sighed, sliding a bit down the seat, closer to Jamie—her body acquiescing as it always did, with a pleasurable trembling in her voice.

“It can’t be any other way. It’s in everything you do; in your chosen profession—I don’t mean this, what you do now, with _him_ ,” Jamie said it, not snidely, not entirely, but as a point of clarification. “You were a _surgeon_ , Watson. You held the very balance of life in your hands.”

Her gaze set firmly out the window, Joan didn’t speak for a long while, but when she did her voice had lost its previous warmth. It was, instead, with a noticeable gloom that she replied, “Considering I lost my last patient, I couldn’t really say much for wielding that kind of power. The allure was gone.”

“Lose one, yes, but save how many others?” Jamie asked, perhaps too pragmatically for Joan, who stiffened, shaking her head.

“Please, don’t,” she said tiredly. “Look— When you’re on that track, you throw yourself in with such single-minded focus… I mean, you have to, you just do—but it isn’t who I am anymore. What I do now? That’s what I’m dedicated to. I like it, and I’m good at it. And there’s no— It’s pointless, looking back.”

“What you do now…” Jamie stopped herself, and laughed somewhat sullenly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t go down that path.”

“No,” Joan agreed. “I don’t think you should.”

Without realising it, Jamie had curled her fingers into a fist against Joan’s back. She unfurled them, slipping nearer to Joan, so close she could drop her head upon her shoulder without any effort. She did so, spreading her hand so that it spanned Joan’s waist. Flexing her fingers, a strange contentment filled her, and she let out a sigh.

“You’re not who I thought you were,” Joan said quietly.

“Yes, I am. I am _everything_ you thought—perhaps more. Don’t let this fool you, Watson; you’re entirely too clever for that.”

“I’ve had,” Joan said, “a few relationships. A few, long-term relationships. When I was in med school, I lived with a guy, and that… ended spectacularly. Like, throwing stuff at him because he was such an asshole level of bad. I didn’t live with anyone again until I was a resident, and that was with Sarah, who was a little older, and specialising in oncology. We were both so driven, and our hours hardly ever matched up but, I don’t know, it was fine. When we saw each other, we vibed; the sex was good, and at that point it almost didn’t matter that we were virtually strangers. And then one day it did; and I remember coming home and seeing she wasn’t there and being relieved I had time to myself. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to see her right then, it was that I didn’t care if I ever saw her. I didn’t love her. At first I thought it was just because she was a woman; it was naïve, but it’s what crossed my mind. But then it happened with men—so I blamed my career, and when that was over, I blamed being rudderless. When I became Sherlock’s partner, it was easy to blame _him_ —the way we live, it’s so myopic, so demanding of my attention, that it’s almost like being a resident all over again. But I _have_ wanted romantic companionship, Jamie. I’ve looked for it. I’ve had men and women in my life who were sweet, who thrilled me, but who went away for varying reasons—bad timing, different expectations; the list is _long_. Sometimes it hurt to see them go; sometimes it was a relief.” She paused. Took a breath. “All of this is to tell you that the feelings I have for you are the biggest mindfuck of my life. So, please, believe me when I say that you are _not_ who I thought you were.”

For once, Jamie was dumbstruck. She felt a very distinctive tightness in her chest, crawling up her throat and squeezing, the way it had for months after James had been declared lost; the week she realised her mother was never coming home; the year her father lost his wits. The minute she knew, without a doubt, she would have to fake her death to Sherlock. Different than all of those, too, because her heart was thundering in her chest—pleading with her, raising all manner of doubt, because this was not loss. It was something else, something more terrifying.

Joan was watching her, waiting with an alarming steadiness.

Jamie kissed her—they kissed with a ferocity that frightened her. This was not a good-bye kiss, nor was it anything tender. Joan’s teeth scraped over her lower lip, tugged at it, and Jamie hissed. She bit back, sucked at Joan’s tongue. I want you, she wanted to say, but nothing came out of her but a groan that could have been sorrow; a growl that was entirely _need_.

_Not yet_ , it seemed to say. _Don’t let go yet._

_No._ She pressed her fingernails into Joan’s back, liked the urgent sound that whined up her throat so much, she did it again.

_No._

_Not yet._


	48. Bruises

The room was steeped in yellow-gray light when Joan opened her eyes. It must have been early, then. Just past dawn, though that wasn’t saying much.  At this time of year the sun rose late, close to 8, and most of Zurich would already be awake, bustling. And though her internal clock had finally managed to reset itself–she was now averaging a good five or six hours of sleep a night–Joan still felt a sense of dislocation. Hotel rooms, she thought, even ones as nice as these, could never be a substitute for home, for her own bed.

Jamie was beside her, already sitting up, legs drawn up, arms crossed and resting on her knees. Her head was turned away, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow. The adjoining bed was empty, still made. It hadn’t been occupied for several days. They slept together on their sides, hip to hip–the easiest way to fit on the smaller mattress. It hadn’t occurred to Jamie, to either of them, that they could simply move into a single room with a large bed; it would have made more sense, been more comfortable.

(Joan preferred not to admit that she liked sleeping with Jamie at her back, arm slung across her waist, breathing steadily on her shoulder.)

When Joan tapped her ankle, Jamie instantly lifted her head, one hand sunk in her hair as she held it back from her face.

For a moment, Joan just looked at her, caught unawares by her own reaction; it still startled her, how Jamie’s open gaze could stop her in her tracks.

“Hey,” she said. Even now, even after this time together, she sometimes stumbled over words. If Jamie had tells, then so did she, and this was one of them. And though she had never been a willing participant, or even fully aware of the rules of Jamie’s game, she was sure she had lost. She’d made herself transparent. “Thinking of getting up?”

Jamie’s smile was distracted. It didn’t reach her eyes.

“I wasn’t, really,” she replied, not sharing what she _had_ been thinking about; Joan had not expected her to. “How did you sleep?”

“Not bad, actually. You? No nightmares?”

Jamie’s nightmares had woken Joan up every night they had spent together. Last night had been an exception.

“No, none, but then I didn’t get much sleep. After these past few weeks—well, it’s fine. I’ll make it up eventually.”

“Your nightmares are so bad you’d rather not sleep?” Joan asked, though Jamie had already looked away, and didn’t seem in any mood to follow that particular line of inquiry. After a moment of silence, Joan dropped it. “And how’s…” She sat up, touched Jamie’s side, near her bandaging. “Not too tender, right?”

“No,” Jamie answered, raising her arm so that Joan could peel back the tape and gauze to look at the still-healing wound. “You were very careful with me.”

Joan blushed at the bemused sarcasm in Jamie’s voice, thinking about the way they had stumbled into the room, kissing and clawing at each other’s clothes. The things they’d— No, she hadn’t really been as careful as she should have been. Briefly, she glanced down at the finger-shaped bruises on her own thighs, at the red mottles that dotted her chest. Drew her gaze back to Jamie, to see the damage done there: the vestiges of teeth marks on her shoulder, her breasts.

When Jamie caught her eye again, the corner of her mouth jerked up as her palm drifted across Joan’s chest, her fingers swirling over the stains she had left there.

“Does it bother you?” she asked. “The intensity of it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t had enough time away from you to think about it rationally. And you—you’re confusing.”

“What would your therapist say?”

“My _therapist_?” Joan laughed, said, “My therapist would call this a clusterfuck. She has, actually. More than once.”

Jamie paused her exploration to look up at her.

“So you _do_ have one,” she said, her smile broadening. “And what have you told her, then?”

“Oh, no, that’s private.”

“Come now. Don’t be _coy_ , Watson.”

“It’s called self-preservation. Besides, it’s not like you’re going to share anything with me. You probably haven’t even told anyone about, well, about this situation.”

It was a stupid thing to say, and as soon as the words left her mouth, Joan knew it. Because, really:

“Who would I tell, Joan? I haven’t girlfriends I ring up for late night chats. My bodyguards, my drivers—they’re terrible conversationalists. Or they were.” She said it all off-hand, but behind her tone Joan thought she spied her trying too hard to sound casual about it. “I did call you, though, didn’t I? Though it wouldn’t have done, talking to you about _you._ ” Jamie got out of bed, put distance between them as she added, “We should try and leave by mid-day. I’ve got a few errands to run, and whilst I do, perhaps you can pack?”

“Errands,” Joan repeated, fighting the mental whiplash that came with Jamie’s shift in the conversation. “Yeah, I can do that.“

“Good,” Jamie replied, throwing on her robe. She took a few steps towards the bathroom before asking, “Would you happen to have that key I gave you?”

“The one you gave me at my mother’s house? Why?”

“You were right at the outset; it _is_ a bank deposit key, and if you’ve got it, I would very much like to use it.”

“But—?”

“What? The handcuffs? I had those specially made, Watson. I thought you would like them, and you _did_.”

“But they weren’t trick cuffs. I examined them.”

“No, not _trick_ , exactly, though I could’ve opened them without the key, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Joan covered her face for a moment; laughed. It hit a sour register.

“Of course,” she said. “Well, it was a nice bit of theater. I do have it with me, yes.”

“Wonderful. I’ll have a shower, then. When you’ve found it, you can leave it on the desk there, and I’ll grab it before I go.”

She turned around, but this time it was Joan who stopped her.

“Jamie?”

“Hm?”

“What my therapist told me was that I was too sensible to enter into something with you. I told her that in the past few years I have abandoned a career I’d been working towards my entire adult life, and then abandoned a _second_ career because I happened to meet a brilliant man who offered me work that, for me, turned out to be as interesting and fulfilling as medicine. Neither of these were sensible moves. I am _not_ a sensible person, but I do go with my gut, and mostly it steers me right. So, right now, I need something from you. I need _you_ to tell _me_ what your plan is; I need you to give me the opportunity to be a part of it, and if I can’t be involved, I need you to give me the chance to bow out. Right now, before we leave for Bern and I go to that house, before I fall _any_ deeper, you have to be honest with me. Tell me.”

The look Jamie gave her was the same one she’d given her as she’d sat on Sherlock’s hospital bed all of those years ago, when she’d realized she’d been duped; that Joan had beaten her. It was serious, but not angry; it was almost curious in its intensity.

“All of it?” she asked, fastening her robe’s belt, the silky fabric wound tight around her knuckles. “Every bit, Joan?”

“Yes. All of it, Jamie. Everything you’ve got.”


	49. Fail-safes & Countermeasures

“I don’t think it will come as any surprise that I have several countermeasures in place—in case of capture, in case of… Well, suffice it to say, many eventualities spring to mind. While my incarceration was unexpected,” she said this with a smile, but her eyes were a little cold, “it was not unforeseen. I wouldn’t be where I am, rather where I was a few weeks ago, if not for meticulous planning. And though my intellect is key to this process, believe me when I say that patience, above all, has proved the vital component.”  
  
Joan waited for Jamie to continue, as she could go on—smugly, vaingloriously—about her professional achievements, but when the silence lingered, she threw up her hands.  
  
“I hope you’re not telling me that I need to be patient?”  
  
Jamie crossed her arms. There, in the monochrome light of the room, her robe was the one slash of color. Deep red; red; red.  
  
“I’m telling you that, for your own protection—"  
  
“Oh, come on—"  
  
“For your own protection, I am moving deliberately. As far as I’m concerned, the chalet is a safehouse. No one knows about it, Joan—anyone who might have is either dead or raving mad. I am telling you that for as long as you are with me, the plan will not be set into motion.”  
  
“So—we’re going on ‘holiday,’ and then you’re sending me away? Do I have that right? Is that the gist of it?” Joan didn’t know why she was angry. Or, rather, she did, but there was nothing rational about it. She should have been glad—happy to extricate herself from the situation, from needless danger when all she could reap from it was having abetted criminal mastermind Moriarty.  
  
(Helping _Jamie_.)  
  
Jamie’s reply was simple, straightforward: “Yes.” A deep breath, released slowly, as she stepped closer and ran a hand through her hair, rubbed the back of her neck. She looked young in the dim light, more innocent than she had any right to seem. “It’s what you want, isn’t it?”  
  
“What’s in the deposit box?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The key. You said it opens a bank deposit box. I’m guessing that’s one of your fail-safes, right? What’s in it?”  
  
“Don’t get wrapped up in this, Watson. I’ve given you the out you so desperately desired. And while, admittedly, I am a selfish woman—I want you around, and I like you entirely too much—I’m not so caught up in what we’re doing that I can’t see what you now need is plausible deniability. The less you know, the better, and if that’s not agreeable, then maybe you should go home. Sherlock will be worried.”  
  
“You’re sending me away,” Joan repeated, when she should have been moving; leaving; wiping her brow with relief.  
  
Jamie, meanwhile, was throwing her an unforgiving look. “Really, Joan? You’ve given me an ultimatum, and I’ve responded in kind. You’re the detective, Watson. If you’d like information, go on and gather it yourself.” There—that funny upward quirk of her mouth, but her eyes completely devoid of warmth. “I’m not Sherlock Holmes, and we’re not partners. This isn’t about playing at being the police, walking onto a crime scene after the fact. This is a different animal altogether, and you know that—you’re a clever woman, and you won’t be sullied by the likes of me. I like that about you, Joan. It thrills me. So please, please don’t ask me what I’m about, because you’ll try and stop me. And you’ll lose.”  
  
The first thing that sprang to mind was: _How dare she? How_ dare _she?_ But then, a split-second later, _What was I expecting?_ Given everything she’d witnessed, she should have known better.  
  
“Fine,” Joan said, and began gathering her clothes with all the calmness she could muster, folding methodically, every seam and corner tucked just right.  
  
Jamie watched her for a moment before retreating to take a shower. The water ran for 15 minutes; Joan had almost finished packing when it stopped. When Jamie came out of the bathroom she was dressed to go out, but her face was bare and her hair was damp.  
  
Joan had just zipped up her bag when she felt Jamie come up next to her, pressing the dress Joan had purposefully left on the floor by the bed.  
  
“Don’t leave it out of some tantrum,” Jamie said. “It’s too beautiful for anyone else.”  
  
“This isn’t a tantrum,” Joan replied steadily. “And you’re right—we are not partners. But after Hong Kong, I earned your respect. I helped you when had no one else, and that should count for something, Jamie.”  
  
Maybe it was her clean face, washed of any artifice, but there was something raw and open about Jamie’s expression, and when she said, “Yes, you’re right, of course,” it was to Joan’s intense satisfaction.  
  
She waited for the other shoe to drop.  
  
“Which is why I didn’t want to pull you any further into my world. It’s a lion’s den—an awful, corrupt cesspool, and no part of you belongs there. And if you wish to leave, that’s up to you, and probably for the best, but if you’d like a reason, if you want me to convince you to come with me to Bern, all I can say is that I’ve got something to show you. There’s something there that, in the eventuality of…” She stopped, looked away. “Fail-safes and countermeasures.” Looked up again, this time wearing something that approximated a smile. “D'you understand, Joan?”  
  
Fail-safes and countermeasures. Joan didn’t like the sound of that. She thought to try one last time: “What’s in the bank deposit box?”  
  
Jamie paused, her smile twisting real as she answered.  
  
“Another key.”


	50. Secrets and Lies

It was an hour’s train ride to Bern, and after that another fifteen minutes in a taxi to reach Jamie’s home, which she had called, in a rare fit of modesty, a chalet, but which was in reality more a manor house, stunningly grand even in its present ruin, elegant in its decay. Its long eaves were dusted with snow—a recent fall, the driver told them, with more to come soon enough—and that somehow made it all the more charming. Joan was never one for fantasy, not even as a child, but the house, situated outside of the city, with the Bernese Alps as a backdrop, had her fondly remembering all of the fairy tales she had ever been told.

Jamie, on the other hand, was strangely quiet as they drove up; Joan watched as she kept her eyes fixed first on her lap, on her hands as she toyed with the 3-band ring on her pinkie finger, and then on the driver, as they chatted briefly—Jamie with a polite terseness—about the weather, skiing, tourism. And then soon enough they were stopping by the front door, the snow coming down a little harder now as Joan stepped outside the car. The air was bracing, and she shivered in her coat while the driver came around to carry their luggage inside; Jamie had finally stopped avoiding the house and she stood, arms crossed, staring up at it with a critical eye, as if she were assessing rather than reminiscing. Joan wondered if she was trying to avoid any of the feelings it conjured up; whether those feelings existed at all.

The house: three stories, tall and narrow, its cream-colored paint chipped and worn. Shutters, once blue, were now faded; some had gone askew. The sloped roof was in better shape, but several of the dormer windows that peaked out were broken.

“I suppose,” Jamie said, her eyes follow a path connecting the dilapidation, “only so much could be done on such short notice.”

Joan walked up beside her, felt the desire to put an arm around her shoulders; tamped it down.

“I like it,” she said. “As a child, I imagine you must’ve loved it.”

“As a child,” Jamie replied, as she finally tore her gaze from the house and headed towards the door, “I loved a great many things. Besides, you haven’t seen it from inside. It’s not like you to judge something by its façade.”

She was right, but when Joan walked through the front door of the house, she immediately felt she’d correctly deduced the state within. Furniture and light fixtures covered in heavy cloth; peeling wallpaper; whatever art had existed on the walls had been removed, leaving only its impression. Off the entryway there was a dusty sitting room, its most prominent feature a large, marble fireplace, ornately carved. Atop the mantle sat the only piece of art that had not been taken away: a ceramic horse’s head.

While Joan let her eyes wander, Jamie began removing the cloth, kicking up a layer of ancient dust that made Joan’s eyes water and her throat itch. She uncovered a settee and a chair, a coffee table—all Gustavian, all white. The linen on the chair was slightly frayed, but still beautiful.

“We won’t need but a few rooms,” Jamie said; Joan thought she detected a certain tightness in her voice, but she could have been imagining it. “I had someone stock the kitchen, clean up a couple of bedrooms. One for us, and one for my painting—unless you’re still thinking of leaving me?”

Joan shook her head; Jamie’s answering smile was constrained.

“But you said you had something to show me,” Joan said, reminding Jamie, reminding herself, that her presence did not signify capitulation.

“Indeed,” Jamie said. “But wouldn’t you like to see the rest of the house?”

“I would. After.”

Something flickered across Jamie’s face, something Joan couldn’t put her finger on. Was it doubt?

But a moment later, doubt or no, Jamie took her by the hand and led her to the staircase, led her to the third flower and into a tiny room, a child’s room. Blue pastel wallpaper stamped with rocking horses. A wooden bed, no mattress, pushed up against the wall. A desk, strewn with artist’s implements: an assortment of pencils, charcoal, watercolors, sketchbooks; Jamie gravitated to them, flipped them open, stared at what Joan presumed was her own early work. Primitive renderings of animals and members of her family slowly gave way to more sophisticated, abstract designs. When Jamie felt Joan over her shoulder, she closed the book and said, “Would you help me move the bed?”

It turned out to be significantly heavier than it looked, and Joan asked Jamie to step away so she wouldn’t hurt herself with the effort. After a few tries, the bed groaned and moved enough so that Joan could see a little door behind it, a small white square with a wooden knob. She tugged the door open, saw only darkness and spiderwebs.

“Let me,” Jamie murmured, kneeling, reaching inside, up to her elbow, until she found what she was looking for. A safebox, not unlike the kind found at a bank.

She took a familiar key from her pocket, gave it to Joan.

“There you are,” she said.

“What is it?” Joan asked, suddenly wary.

“Go on and open it.”

Even after turning the key in the lock and popping the lid open, Joan wasn’t sure what she was looking at. A thick binder. When she flipped it open, it was just full of notes. Each tab a different person.

“Dossiers?” she asked.

Jamie tilted her head at Joan, nodded slowly. “Quite right. That’s years’ worth of work—accumulating information, gathering blackmail material, etcetera. Nothing that would be necessarily useful to anyone but me. Though it could be, if a person with the right sort of mind found it.”

_Sherlock_ , Joan thought. _She means Sherlock._

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because I trust you.”

Joan sat back on her heels, deflated. She hadn’t expected those words ever to come out of Jamie’s mouth. Now she wondered what to do with them.

“I still don’t understand. If this isn’t useful to anyone but you, why hide it? And—is it digitized somewhere? Why is it _here_?”

“It’s here because whilst I trust you, I do not,” Jamie said wryly, “trust the Internet. It’s been safe here, mostly, but I want to be sure it _stays_ safe. Hidden.”

“But why—?”

“If anything happens to me, I’d like to know you’ll destroy this. I don’t want it falling into my enemies’ hands.”

Joan’s heart began to beat in her throat. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“Nothing,” Jamie said, looking steadily at Joan. “But I would be lying if I said the incident with Wei and Lionel did not shake me profoundly. Up until now, I don’t think I’d truly examined the possibility of my own death, not in any realistic way. One thinks oneself immortal.”

“So, that’s it? Destroy it, in case…” Joan stopped short, not quite able to say it.

“There’s something else,” Jamie said, staring intently at Joan before looking away, her eyes darting across the room, her gaze softening, going vulnerable. “Promise me, Joan, that you’ll keep my secret. You’re honorable, aren’t you, in all of the ways in which I am not? Decent and honorable Joan Watson.”

“What is it?” Joan asked, her voice hard, afraid of the look on Jamie’s face.

“Promise me.”

“Fine, yes,“ she replied, exasperated now. But how could she not? "I promise, Jamie.”

Jamie’s eyes locked with Joan’s. A breath, a fluttering eyelid later:

“I have a daughter.”


	51. Motives and Outcomes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> —

“I’ve shocked you,” Jamie said. “Somehow I feel that’s an accomplishment.”

How long had Joan been unable to formulate a response? Five, ten seconds? In the scheme of things, a length of time so protracted, she could see it begin to test Jamie’s resolve. It wasn’t that Joan had not opened her mouth to answer, it was that no words were forthcoming because no reply could possibly convey her astonishment.

“No,” she finally said, nervous laughter bubbling up in her throat. “No, actually, you’re pretty good at doing it at least semi-regularly. I…” She shook her head. “Help me out, Jamie”

“You have questions.”

“Many.”

“Go on, then.”

“Honestly, I don’t know where to begin. I guess I should ask where she is?”

Swinging an appraising look over at Joan, Jamie stood up, leaving the safe deposit box open as she crossed back to the desk and idly picked through ephemera that had remained untouched for years until she found a pencil. Then, she turned the pages of the sketchbook until she reached one that was blank; she doodled as she spoke.

“I suppose I use that word in the very strictest sense. I gave birth to her, and so in that regard she is my daughter, but I don’t know her. I didn’t raise her. The family I chose for her is in no way connected to me; they don’t know me, and I keep track of their whereabouts only because it’s in my nature. I’m not her mother, but she belongs to me. Do you understand?”

Joan thought that maybe she did, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she asked the first awful thought she stumbled upon: “Is she— Is the father—?”

Without turning to look at her, Jamie laughed. “No, I had her before. Before Sherlock. Before I’d built my empire. She would be nearly eight now.”

“Did you know from the start that you wanted to give her up?”

“Yes, and I can tell by how carefully you’re proceeding that you want to know why I didn’t terminate the pregnancy. I was going to; I had no intention of raising a child, not when I knew exactly what my ambitions were, and what it would take to see them fulfilled. But then, I suppose, I had the selfish thought most people encounter, which is the desire to give the world another go at getting it right. Or perhaps,” she paused, stared intensely at her work as her hand moved across the page; whatever she was drawing, Joan couldn’t see. “Perhaps some part of me feared I would never again connect with another human being, and here was this person who would have no choice in the matter, and who would, regardless of my abandonment, remain connected to me through a bond as irrefutable and undeniable as blood.”

Joan sat quietly for a moment, letting the sound of Jamie’s pencil moving furiously across the page fill the room.

When she spoke, she asked, “Is that what you really thought?”

The sketching stopped abruptly as Jamie turned and glared at her. “What does it matter now?” She returned to her work. “The outcome is the same, is it not?”

“Motives matter.”

“Outcomes matter,” was Jamie’s offhanded riposte. “Whether I kill a man for money or advancement or out of some righteous hatred I’ve conjured up, the result is the same. He is dead. To him, there are no possible distinctions.”

“Now you’re being deliberately obtuse, Jamie. Morally, in the eyes of the law—of course those distinctions matter.

“My moral compass is decidedly skewed; and the law—” Jamie stopped. “So.”

Joan tipped her head back against the wall, closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of the nose.

“Why did you want me to know about your daughter?”

Jamie didn’t answer. She dropped the pencil on the desk, grabbed her sketchbook. When she crossed the room and sat beside Joan, she sighed. “I wanted to tell you a secret. Exposing a secret is like baring a vein. I’ve _many_ secrets, Joan, but this was the only one I thought you would care about, one of the few no one else knows.”

Joan took the sketchbook from Jamie’s hands. A quick, impressionistic depiction of a little girl with Jamie’s cat eyes but with a longer face; fuller lips; short, bobbed hair.

“I haven’t a clue what she looks like,” Jamie said, in response to Joan’s questioning glance. “Don’t misinterpret. It’s merely an exercise. I’ve no mothering instinct, only existential qualms. What would I have linger of me after I’m gone? My intellect? My gift for murder?”

Joan looked away, down at her hands which were resting on her knees. She curled them into fists.

“You said I’m the only one who knows about her? What about her father?”

“No,” Jamie murmured, leaning so that her shoulder was pressed against Joan’s. “I never told him.”

“Is he…still in your life?”

“Are you jealous?”

Joan bristled. “I don’t mean romantically, just—”

“Strangely enough, he is. In yours, too. In a manner of speaking.”

Those words made Joan sit up to examine Jamie’s face; it remained impassive.

“What do you mean?” Joan demanded.

Jamie’s eyes flickered to her, and away again as she answered.

“The girl’s father is Lionel Winthrop.”


	52. Circling

“Lionel Winthrop,” Joan repeated, after realizing Jamie was probably expecting her to say something. She was still trying to reconcile what she had just learned with the fisheye lens image she had of the man she’d encountered in Hong Kong. Remembering his violent outburst at the end of their meeting was easy; it was the deference with which he had treated her when he’d thought she was “M” which now puzzled Joan. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“Why not?” Jamie asked. “He’s attractive. We were both young and I was somewhat reckless then, in a way I soon learned was counter-productive, but which suited me early in my career. Being young and reckless, I was drawn to him because he was dangerous in a way I’d never encountered before. By then I knew quite a lot of people who were employed in unsavory professions—petty criminals, mostly, even people who’d killed, but never someone with his sort of appetite. He lacked ambition, but he was creative, and fun. It wasn’t ever meant to last.”

Joan nodded, biting at her lip, her gaze locked on a far corner of the room, where a small, wooden sword was propped against the wall. She wondered about the house’s ghosts, about what it felt like for Jamie to be in that room, surrounded by her old life. For Joan, going back to her childhood home was like stepping back in time, even now. It wasn’t home anymore, and in many ways it felt like any other house, a stranger’s house, but there was something, a remnant, perhaps, a residual comfort that lived in its foundation and in Joan’s marrow.

She remained quiet. It wasn’t that she had nothing to say, it was that she didn’t know what she _could_ say, or what mattered anymore.

She sneezed, heard Jamie murmur, “Gesundheit.”

“My mother uses that,” Joan finally said. “Gesundheit. Never _bless you_. Always _good health_.” She paused, found Jamie’s eyes on her, staring hard. “You’re not telling me any of this because you want me to have an arbitrary secret, Jamie. You’re not that sentimental. What is it? Are you worried about her?”

“I’m worried she could be used against me.”

“Or maybe you’re worried that you’ll die and she’ll be left unprotected.” Jamie looked away as Joan continued, “You said no one else knows about her.”

“That’s right,” Jamie replied, bringing a hand to her eyes, her thumb and index fingers pressing against closed eyelids. “I haven’t told anyone but you.”

“So she should be safe.”

“I made the near-fatal error of assuming Lionel would always be loyal to me, Joan. I’ll never make that sort of mistake again, not one based on assumptions.”

“But you’re assuming _I’ll_ be loyal to you.”

Jamie dropped her hand, opened her eyes. Gave her a flinty look.

“You’re different,” she said.

“Am I?”

Turning so that her shoulder and cheek were to the wall, Jamie took Joan by the hands. Joan turned, too, and they were eye-to-eye as the house settled and groaned.

“Lionel’s loyalty,” Jamie said quietly, her thumb drawing circles in Joan’s palm, “was borne of duty. When we came together again, a few years after I’d given the baby up, it seemed perfect that I should use him again.”

“Because he loved you.”

Jamie seemed surprised by Joan’s words, or maybe the sharpness in her voice.

“No. Lionel never loved me,” she answered. “There’s the difference, you see.”

The intense, almost wild expression on Jamie’s face forced Joan to shrink away. She almost pulled her hands out of Jamie’s grip, but that too felt urgent, important.

“You don’t believe that,” Joan said, unable to look at her, dropping her eyes to the sight of the straining tangle of their fingers. “You don’t believe that loyalty can be bought with love. If that were true, you never would have betrayed Sherlock.”

“Perhaps,” Jamie said, her hold tightening into pain, “but _you do_ believe it, Joan, and that’s what matters. You’re the better person.”

“Stop saying that.” She wished they weren’t so close together. She wished she could break away, go outside. Take a breath of fresh air and stand in the snow until her bones ached and her mind cleared. “You don’t think I’m better than you in any way, Jamie.”

“Yes, I do,” Jamie said, so heatedly Joan would have recoiled if they hadn’t been locked in as tightly as they were. They were so close to one another, it was almost an embrace. “And don’t you think I wish I could be better in your eyes?”

When Jamie exhaled, Joan felt it on her lips. She felt anger, and resentment, and maybe even bitterness, too, but mostly she wanted Jamie. She just wanted her.

And she was one moment away from either kissing her or screaming about unfair tactics, about games that neither one of them could win, when there came a hollering from somewhere downstairs, a woman’s frail voice carrying faintly, echoing from below.

“That would be the housekeeper,” Jamie said, releasing Joan, shifting away all at once, standing, so that Joan shook from the loss, the missed opportunity.

“Jamie–”

But Jamie was already hiding away her safety deposit box, dropping the sketchbook back onto the desk.

“We should probably finish our conversation later, hm? Would you help me with the bed?”

When the bed was back in its place, they left the room; Jamie was as cool and composed as she’d ever been.

They were rounding the second floor landing when Joan stopped her with a hand on her arm. Jamie was a few stairs below when she looked up.

“We can’t keep going in circles.”

Jamie’s eyes skittered across Joan’s face, searching, before she nodded. “I know it.”

“You told me something important. And I want you to know that you _can_ trust me with it. I won’t betray you, Jamie.”

Reading Jamie’s expression as she stared back at Joan proved impossible. It wasn’t until she turned fully and wrapped her arms around Joan’s thighs, cheek to her stomach, that Joan breathed again. She let her fingers drift through Jamie’s hair, and sighed.


	53. Toward the Flame

Evening was quiet. They toured the house, Jamie serving as guide, sometimes effusively sharing information, sometimes silent as her gaze wandered across empty, dusty rooms. Whatever she thought in those moments she kept to herself and, although Joan wanted to ask questions, wanted to know more, she let Jamie wallow in her memories without prying.

A few of the rooms were furnished: the kitchen, the dining room, two of the bedrooms, and Jamie’s studio, which was the last stop on the tour, and the one in which Jamie’s shoulders finally lost their tension.

“Oh,” she murmured, as if she were talking to herself, walking from the shelves that kept paint and brushes neatly organized to an easel, which she touched briefly with her index finger. “You should sit for me, Joan, when there’s time.”

“When there’s time?” Joan asked, inspecting the tubes of oil paint arranged by hue. Surely they’d gone dry by now, after so much time? “Speaking of, how long has it been? I mean, when were you last here?”

Jamie sat on the stool in front of the easel, looked at Joan through its wooden frame. Her gaze didn’t quite connect; she seemed lost in thought. After a long moment, and a puffed sigh, she answered, “Fifteen? Sixteen years?”

“It must seem like another lifetime,” Joan said, picking up a tube of yellow ochre. She squeezed it, and was surprised to find it still had some give to it. Maybe the paint was good after all.

“What a thing to say. We all change, don’t we, from when we’re sixteen, and we're sullen and hormonal and dreadfully sentimental.”

There, that word, and Jamie’s seeming rebuttal of Joan’s previous analysis. _Sentimental_ , and all it wrongly implied about the depth and nature of Jamie’s feelings.

“You?” Joan asked, with a dismissiveness she couldn’t quite contain.

Arms crossed, Jamie tipped her head back, examining, scrutinizing Joan as though she really were preparing to paint her.

“I was a girl. I could have been anything. I contained multitudes,” she answered, her eyes softening, now looking at Joan with undisguised affection. It was a strange thing. Joan thought it an odd little miracle.

Jamie went on: “And what about Joan Watson? Was she sentimental, or as stupidly practical as she is now?”

Joan laughed as she ran her thumb across a wide Kolinsky brush, silky and well-cared for. And she thought that it was true that Jamie knew so little about her. “I’m not practical.”

“Right,” Jamie said. “Because if you were, you wouldn’t be here with me. So then what _were_ you like? Where did you spend your time?”

“Not in Swiss chalets.”

Jamie left her place by the easel and walked to Joan, who pretended to stare intensely at a palette, splashed with decades old paint. She ran her fingers over the fading colors, imagined them when they had been fresh and wet and vibrant, shimmering at the tip of Jamie’s brush.

“So where, then?” Jamie murmured.

Joan shrugged, looked at her. “The Poconos,” she said, smiling after a moment. “Vail, a few times, if we’re talking winter vacations. My parents did well, and Oren and I never wanted for anything.

If you want to know what I was like when I was younger—normal, I guess. I had a few—not many, but a few—close friends. We—went to the mall.” Jamie made a face, and Joan laughed as she continued, “The movies. Teenager stuff. I pretended to like Godard for a boy. I read high fantasy. I studied hard. Played volleyball, was on the speech team. Fought with my mom over the stupidest things…”

“And you wanted to be a doctor? Even then, I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It just seemed like the best thing to be,” Joan said.

“Because you’d be helping people, I suppose?”

“Not even that. It wasn’t that selfless. I just knew that it was special, that it would be hard but that the reward would justify the work.”

“What did you think that reward would be?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I was sixteen. I wanted to be great. What about you? What did you want, Jamie?” she asked, expecting, perhaps, _to rule the world._

Jamie took the palette from Joan’s hands and set it down. “To be Rembrandt,” she answered, a moment later. Briefly, she smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “We’re not so very different, are we, Watson?”

_Watson_. Joan took a step back as she surveyed the entirety of the room, trying to place young Jamie at the easel, alone for hours as she stared at the fruits of her labor.

“We need to talk about Winthrop,” she said. When Jamie gave her a quick, hard look, she amended, “No, not about that. I’m talking about what’s going on _now._ About what you plan to do. About what you think _he_ might be planning. Be straight with me, Jamie.” And maybe she thought that on this day of revelations, Jamie would be.

Instead, she circled back around the room, ignoring Joan’s question as she stopped in front of a record player, popped open an album case, and thumbed through the LPs. She picked one and slipped it out of its sleeve. As she placed it on the turntable and dropped the needle on a groove, she said, “What’s Mr. White of Interpol got to say about it? Surely he’s responded to your query by now?”

_Shit_ , Joan thought, closing her eyes for two seconds as she considered her options. Scriabin’s _Vers la flamme_ filled the room.

“When did you have time to go through my computer?” she asked, swallowing past the tightness in her throat.

“I didn’t go through your computer, Joan. I still have people, however, who make sure I’m apprised whenever interesting terms come through Interpol’s email servers. Jamie Moriarty and Lionel Winthrop, for instance—those words, all together, would raise an alarm.”

“How long have you known?”

“You make it sound so sordid. I’ve known since this morning. Before we left Zurich I received a message about your one-way communication with Mr. White.”

“Since—“ Joan stopped. The music was too loud. Her head was thrumming. “You knew and you brought me here anyway. You told me—“

“Your motives were pure,” Jamie said, surprisingly airy.

“You weren’t angry?”

“Of course I was. I was very definitely angry. And I gave you every opportunity to leave, if you’ll remember.”

“So then, why? Why go through with it? Why bring me here and show me what you’ve showed me, Jamie?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Jamie gave her a long, indecipherable look. “Whatever your motives, whatever mine, the fact is we’re here, and you know.” She paused. In the music: tremolos. “You’ll need a phone. I’ll give you one of mine.”

Joan’s head was swimming.

“I— What?”

“You’ll need to give Sherlock a ring. Whilst Interpol’s Mr. White has yet to respond to your email, he’s very definitely sent one on to Sherlock. I’m sure he’s wondering just what it is you’re up to, darling.”


	54. [Interlude #12]

Joan did not attempt an explanation. Instead, her mouth went tight and thin as she turned heel and left the room.

 _Where do you even think you’re going_? Jamie thought, facing the wall, one hand on either side of the record player, watching the record spin and spin. Discordant notes, hard and jangly, made the speakers vibrate; one of them buzzed its disapproval. Jamie’s fingers tightened and relaxed, tightened and relaxed, and as the music reached its crescendo, she closed her eyes. When it was over she stood there for long minutes, waiting for the flames. At last, she heard footsteps above, and knew Joan was pacing. Back and forth. Jamie looked up at the ceiling, followed the progression of sounds, bit the inside of her mouth. She straightened then, and felt immediately a twinge at her side. She touched the bandage, felt its outline under her shirt, and hated herself for the blood, and the gratitude, that prickled her tongue.

She had thought she would paint, paint Joan, perhaps, but she touched nothing, not even the needle that was skipping back to the first groove of the record, as she turned towards the door.

When she found her, Joan was sitting on the floor by her luggage, her clothes in disarray, her phone useless on her lap. She was staring at the doorway, past Jamie, but on her face was revulsion.

“You’re a grown woman,” Jamie began.

“ _Yes_ ,” Joan said, fast and rough and angry.

“You made your choices.”

“Yes,” again. Quick, but resigned. Deflated. Finally, she looked Jamie in the eye and said, “I shouldn’t have done it. Sending that email was careless.”

“Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

Joan’s fury came back quick as a flash. “And you should have given me more information. I _begged_ you, back at the hotel, to talk to me. To be honest, for once. But, no, you had to wait; you had to reveal yourself in your own time. It’s always a performance, and that’s _bullshit_ , Jamie.”

“And you said that I could trust you with my secrets,” Jamie said, calm as she leaned against the doorframe. Beneath its bandage, her wound itched and flared hot.

“I _meant it_ ,” Joan said. “God, but what difference does it make? Who cares, when there’s no actual trust between us?”

“How could there be?” Jamie used a neutral tone, but Joan’s expression turned aggrieved and so she added, with a measure of softness, “Don’t be a fool. I’ve shown you everything.”

Joan looked away, down at her mobile. She tossed it back onto the pile of clothes in front of her and breathed a bitter laugh. It was mildly disconcerting, seeing her so out of sorts, and Jamie felt a stirring, a subaqueous tendril of feeling, not new, that threatened to stretch and grow, and sprout little feet that would propel it to unknown places.

Jamie wished it would drown.

“I don’t even have a SIM card,” Joan muttered, running fingers through her hair.

“I told you. Use one of mine.”

Joan dropped her head into her hands, and Jamie took a step into the room. But Joan wasn’t crying, nowhere near, and so Jamie stopped her progression, crossed her arms. When Joan uncovered her face, she was flushed. Her brows drew together as she shook her head.

“What am I doing?” she asked not Jamie but herself.

Jamie answered anyway: “What’s the use in that question? You came to help me. You thought you were helping me when you messaged Mr. White, did you not?”

Joan shook her head but murmured yes.

“What, then, is the problem? Sherlock? Surely, you can handle him. Better, I daresay, than I ever could. He admires you, Joan. He loves you, and his reaction, if it comes, will be brief. Of that, I’m quite certain. And, of course, I have also forgiven you your transgression.”

“Oh, have you?” Joan said flatly.

Ah, a miscalculation. Talk of forgiveness was ridiculous, and no doubt Joan knew it. What was there to forgive? Jamie _had_ _known_. All along she had known that Joan would do something like contact Interpol. Maybe not that, exactly, but she had considered Joan might go to Sherlock, and that she hadn’t simply because she was so frightened he would guess at the nature of Joan and Jamie’s relationship. But, yes, Joan’s appeal to higher powers had been preordained, because Joan believed in fair play, believed in angels and demons, and had hedged her bets accordingly. To hear talk of forgiveness, now, from Jamie, must have sounded cheap and insulting.

And so Jamie retreated. She smiled and retreated, pulled back with something less patronising:

“Not that you were looking for it, but your action _did_ set into motion a few unfortunate realities. Lionel will find out, just as I did, that you were querying Interpol about him. He’ll wonder why. He’ll puzzle over it. He may put it all together, I don’t know. He’s clever enough, when he tries.” She crossed the room, pushed aside Joan’s suitcase, and sat beside her on the floor. “Sherlock will find us. He’ll want to save you from Moriarty, you understand.”

“Yes,” Joan said dully. “I’m sure he will.”

“You’ll call him, but calling him won’t stop him, not now that he knows what sort of trouble you’re in.”

“I thought you were protecting me?” Joan asked, a hint of defiance in her voice as she toyed with a loose thread on her blouse.

“I am, but Sherlock won’t ever believe that. Why would he?”

Joan laughed, one shake of the shoulders and a shuddered sigh.

“After your arrest,” she said, “I thought about you a lot. Mostly I was trying to figure out what it was Sherlock had fallen in love with. I knew why _you_ loved _him_. I _know_ why. It’s not just that he’s brilliant and that he’s intuitive and can match wits with you. It’s that he’s a _good_ , good man. It’s why your game worked, why you were able to manipulate him, but it’s also why you rushed to his hospital bed when you thought he had overdosed.”

“Is that why?” Jamie asked. The tendril worked its way up to her throat, coiled and squeezed. “And you think I have use for a good man in my life, do you?”

“No, which is why it was so telling that we were able to catch you with such a simple ruse.”

The tendril coiled up tight and tigher; Jamie breathed in sharply, exhaled slowly, willing it to loosen. It did not, and by the time Joan turned, fixing her with a look of cool deliberation, Jamie felt as if she were choking.

“I thought you were a monster, some kind of psychopath. The things you did— And you were so _cold_. But then you made your mistake and I could only think, ‘Irene, Moriarty. How many masks does she wear?’”

Jamie looked away, put her fingers to her neck. Squeezed.

Joan went on: “Except you were real with him, when you asked him to go away with you. And you were real with me, today.”

Jamie dropped her hand, schooled her expression into blankness. When she looked at Joan, she smiled, but it didn’t come easily. Joan would see how forced it was. Still, she continued.

“Are you suggesting I’ve made another mistake? I don’t think so, Joan.”

“How do you know?” Joan replied, but she wasn’t gloating. She seemed drained.

“Because, you may not understand it,” Jamie said archly, daring Joan to deny it, “but you love me, darling. And that’s why you’ll keep my secrets.”

When Joan’s smile arrived, there was no victory in it.

“Maybe, but you exposed yourself today, Jamie, so let’s be honest. There’s a safe deposit key in my pocket that says you love me, too.”


	55. [Interlude #13]

Had she ever truly been in love? Was she capable of it? Certainly she knew the unrelenting pulsations of infatuation. The nausea of obsession. The throb she felt now as she looked at Joan hit her square in the cunt, but sex, even good as this, had never kept her tethered to any one person. And she was, if only momentarily, affixed to Joan. Willingly, delightfully, frighteningly affixed. Was then that inchoate feeling, that sickening tendril, what Joan glimpsed when they looked at one another? Was it the same as Jamie saw in Joan’s defeated gaze?

“Perhaps we’ve reached an impasse,” she said, staring, unblinking, at Joan, when all she wanted was to look away. “What would you propose we do now?”

Joan sighed as though the question had been burdening her for ages.

“I could go home,” she said, and that response, so familiar, so gratingly stupid, made Jamie’s teeth clench. “It’s what I should have done as soon as I got you out of Hong Kong.”

“Yes. I was out of danger, then, wasn’t I?”

“On your feet, at least. And apparently you still have people who are loyal to you. Why you needed me at all—”

And that Jamie could not abide. That Jamie _had_ to interrupt. “It’s one thing, Watson, to trust a lackey who is feeding me information over an encrypted line, quite another to allow them into the sort of confidence I’ve been sharing with you.” Jamie paused, giving Joan ample time to come up with a response, a denial, anything. When she didn’t, Jamie continued, inferring what she desired, which was that Joan had not wanted to go home. Whatever limp protestations she now uttered, whatever tactical mistakes she claimed to have made, ultimately she had chosen, and she’d chosen _Jamie_. “If you had wanted to leave, you could have. I wouldn’t have stopped you; I _couldn’t_ have. In point of fact, I invited you to leave. But you didn’t, and you won’t. And so here you are, Joan. Here _we_ are. Funny, isn’t it?”

Joan put on a disbelieving smile, the sort she was very good at wearing.

“No, not really.”

“I wonder if part of what I like about you is that you’re such a contrarian.”

“I’m guessing it’s the challenge,” Joan offered. “You like the _no._ ”

“Yes, but more than that,” Jamie replied, “I crave the capitulation that follows.”

Joan finally looked away. Her smile became wan, and Jamie could see the wheels in her mind turning, turning. After a long moment, something shifted. The smile disappeared but Joan looked not at all angry as she said, plainly, “You lied to me.”

Jamie feigned astonishment. “What about, darling?”

“You said it yourself—how many times did you tell me to leave? How many times did you tell me you didn’t want me involved in this? You pushed me away and somehow, despite my better judgment, I’m still here.”

“And where is the lie, then?” Jamie asked, tilting her head, narrowing her eyes. _Oh_ , she thought. _Joan Watson, you clever girl._

“I should have realized it sooner. It’s so obvious now, but then I guess I thought you were vulnerable, that you needed me, so what was the point of lying? So you told me to go, but when it looked like I really would, you stopped me. You dangled this place, you dangled information—you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. Not that; not _you_.”

“To what end, Joan?” Jamie asked serenely, letting Joan talk; letting it play itself out.

“You want revenge. You want Wei and you want Winthrop, but you’re not sure you can do it alone just now. You’re not completely helpless, you have resources, but the thing with Lionel is that you trusted him, you trusted him more than you should have, and it really threw you, didn’t it? And you can’t figure it out, why he did what he did, and _how_ he did it. Why you’re alive at all.”

“That’s not exactly fresh information, Watson.”

“Of course not, but it bears repeating, because you _needed_ me to get involved, to stay involved. Because you need Sherlock.”

There was silence. Jamie did not deny. She did not affirm. She waited and waited, until she had to murmur, “Go on,” because the force of Joan’s stare was so intense it felt physical.

“You wanted me to contact him. You wanted me to bring him in. That’s why you weren’t all that upset that I reached out to Interpol. It worked out perfectly, even better than if I’d called Sherlock myself because that way he wouldn’t suspect I was being coerced.”

“I _didn’t_ coerce you,” Jamie replied.

“No, you didn’t, did you? Because you knew it wouldn’t have worked if you’d tried it.”

“Then why did I bring you here?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you need to do, this is the better place. Lonely, remote— This isn’t a safehouse, Jamie. This house was never safe for you.”

Jamie laughed, she had to, but it came out of her like a cough, like a sneeze, like some involuntary function of illness.

“Oh, please,” she hissed, but when her eyes darted across the mostly bare room, at the dull, peeling wallpaper, at the scuffed wood floors, she flinched.

It was because of that that she nearly missed Joan reaching for her, saw it only in the periphery, the hand that grabbed her by the back of the neck and tangled furiously in her hair, pulling her, forcing her, to turn her head, to look straight into Joan’s hard gaze. Her eyes sprouted anemic tears, and Jamie wilted beneath the stare.

“What was real?” Joan demanded. “The dossier? _The daughter?_ ”

Jamie swallowed, whimpered when Joan’s fingers tightened. Her heart thrummed—part of her was frightened, but the other felt a keen euphoria.

“No,” she said. “Not the dossier. The girl. Yes, the girl.”

“Why? _Why would you tell me that?_ ” She shook her hand, pulling Jamie’s hair, and Jamie laughed and cried at it. “ _Why_?”

“Because,” Jamie exhaled, falling forward when Joan released the brutal hold. Pressed closer when Joan’s fingers instead sank into her arms. Breathed against Joan’s skin, and said, “Because I think I’ll die here.”


	56. The Lie

It was almost laughter, what came out of her, but it stopped in her throat, lodged there, and so when Joan shoved Jamie away and said, “That’s _bullshit_ ,” it felt as raw as anything, as if someone had been stepping on her neck. “What did you think you were going to do to me? Gaslight me, the way you did Sherlock?”

Jamie didn’t speak. She was flushed, and she was breathing hard, and her eyes were closed. She didn’t speak.

“You are _not going to die_ ,” Joan continued, her anger radiating from some impossible place deep inside of her chest, making her tremble. Her rage was so intense she could barely see through it. “But if you do, so what? Honestly, I should have left you to rot in Hong Kong.”

At that, Jamie’s eyes flew open, and when her gaze connected with Joan’s it was so wounded, Joan thought, _Good_. “So you _do_ feel something?”

Jamie ran a hand through her hair, wiped at her eyes, and the hurt dropped from her face as she said, more composed, “You’re only angry.”

“Of course, I’m angry. Of course, I’m fucking _livid_. I’m sorry, what were you expecting?”

“Perhaps if you’d let me explain,” Jamie said, evenly, not looking at Joan, and the calm in that response was almost more infuriating than everything that came before.

Joan wanted to throttle her, but she settled for throwing her clothes back into her suitcase, not bothering to fold, just throwing wads of fabric in lieu of indulging the violence in her head.

It was too late to leave. She had a headache, it was snowing, and who knew when the trains to Zurich stopped running. First thing in the morning, though, she’d call a car, call Sherlock. Try and stop him, if he hadn’t already left New York. And she’d make it up to him, somehow. She wasn’t sure how, but she’d let him keep a menagerie in the brownstone, indulge each and every one of his eccentricities, if only he never mentioned the name Jamie Moriarty again.

Jamie, meanwhile, took Joan’s silence as permission to continue:

“When I said _die—_ ”

“Shut up.”

“Joan—”

“No. Shut. Up. I don’t want to hear it. I’m done with you. I’m leaving tomorrow and all that I ask in exchange for having _saved your life_ is that you not talk to me anymore.”

Something in Jamie’s expression flipped, instantly, and it was almost frightening to witness. If Joan’s blood hadn’t been up, she might have been scared by how quickly Jamie could freeze. But as Jamie tilted her head, nodded, left the room altogether, Joan wasn’t sure what to feel. Still angry, yes, but confused too by how Jamie had given up, by how easy it had been to simply dismiss her. It was relief and disappointment, because up until that moment Joan hadn’t known how much she’d wanted to let Jamie have it, how much she would have relished a screaming match even when that had never been her style. But she wanted one now, she wanted a fight that would let her get out everything that was festering, every feeling that had wormed its way into her body and settled there like a parasite. If only shouting at the top of her lungs could get rid of the insanity that was loving Jamie Moriarty.

She paced the room for a few minutes, working out her frustration on the floorboards. Then she tossed all of her clothes out of her suitcase and started over, this time folding everything neatly, folding shirts and jeans, tucking tights and socks and underwear in the right compartments. It was mindless work, and it helped steady her. By midnight, she finally felt tired enough to sleep; she changed into sweats and a t-shirt, grabbed a toothbrush, and headed for the bathroom, found it on her second try only to bump into Jamie, who was coming out after a shower. She was in a robe, green silk, and her feet were bare. Abiding by Joan’s request, she didn’t say anything, not even an excuse me, as Joan backed up and let her pass. And if some of Joan’s anger had faded, if she felt a twinge of regret, then she buried it down deep as she washed her face and brushed her teeth, scrubbing fast so that she could disappear back into her room.

One rolled around. Then two. The furnace sputtered and stalled periodically; it was stupidly cold. Joan wrapped herself in several blankets, but she still couldn’t sleep. She could only think of Jamie, somewhere in another room; Joan wondered if she had managed to evade her insomnia. A while later, eyes still wide open, she heard footsteps and thought, _No, she’s awake, too, and prowling._

And so Joan got out of bed, was able to find the room Jamie had taken by the glow coming from under one of the closed doors. She knocked on it, waited. When no one answered, she opened it only to find it empty. From there she went downstairs, where it was dark save for the light coming from down the main corridor, from the room where Jamie kept her studio. Joan paused, considered the wisdom of her actions, but by then most of her anger had gone, leaving only a rattling sense that something had spoiled, gone to rot.

From the doorway she stopped to watch Jamie, whose back was turned to her, who was bent over a mostly blank canvas, working in minuscule brush strokes on something Joan couldn’t make out.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Jamie straightened but she didn’t turn around, and after a moment, she resumed her work.

“Am I allowed to speak, then?”

“I was angry.”

Jamie continued to paint as she replied, “Yes, you were.”

“I have a right to be angry.”

Finally, Jamie put down brush and palette, turned around. She crossed her arms as she looked Joan squarely in the eye.

“Yes, you do.”

Joan waited a few beats before she spoke again: “Go ahead, then.”

Jamie looked her up and down. “Go ahead and what?”

“You were going to explain. Go ahead. Lie to me.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow; her lips twitched. She went to Joan, and stopped when they were separated only by her crossed-arms. Her paint-stained fingers drew Joan’s gaze, and she stared at those hands until Jamie spoke, her voice surprisingly warm and soft.

“I won’t.”

“Won't you?”

“No, I—”

Whatever it was, whatever truth or lie was going to come out of her mouth, was interrupted by a banging, the sound of wood splintering, a rush of footsteps. _More than one person_ , Joan thought, in a daze. _More than two..._

The lights went off. And in that inky darkness, in that swollen shade, Jamie grabbed Joan by the hand, pulled her out of the room, propelling them deeper into the house, deeper into the trap.


	57. Extinguished

Her feet were nearly frozen, approaching numb but mostly so painfully cold that the slush clinging to her soles felt like glass. The bottoms of her pajama pants were soaked through, and snow clung to her knees from when she’d tripped on the way out the back door. Jamie was worse off. She was dressed only in her robe, and she was shivering violently as she struggled with the combination lock on the shed door. It had been less than a minute since they’d rushed out of the house, but someone would be out soon. Someone would find them.

For another few seconds, Jamie struggled against her icy fingers, against the pitch that made it so hard to see the numbers on the lock Joan could see her straining, her brow furrowed as she hunched over it. Finally, the lock gave under Jamie’s trembling hands and she dropped it on the ground as she pulled back the shed door. It squeaked, and that little noise made Joan’s stomach drop. She eyed the back door, but there was nothing there. No one. It was closed. Nothing to see, not yet, but she could hear muffled shouting coming from inside the house.

Someone would be out soon.

Jamie, meanwhile, was working as fast as she could, pushing aside old garden tools, throwing back a tarp. Beneath it: a wooden hatch, of the same vintage as the rest of the shed, old and splintered. When Jamie tugged at the handle it resisted briefly before popping open, revealing a black, canvas duffel tucked inside. Joan looked up at the door and back down at the duffel as Jamie unzipped it, her breath coming in short, hard bursts, visible in the moonglow. One gun, two. Jamie gave Joan a questioning glance, and Joan nodded, intuiting what she was asking. _Yes_ , she thought. _I know how_.

Jamie handed her one of the guns, a semi-automatic, and two magazines. Joan shoved one of them in her pocket, and inserted the other into the pistol’s well. When it clicked, she pulled back the slide until it stopped and a round was in the chamber. She watched Jamie do the same, but lacking pockets she tucked the second magazine into the elastic of her underwear. She was shaking so hard, Joan thought it would be a wonder if she could manage to shoot straight.

(Joan had learned to shoot as part of her training with Sherlock, and she’d been to the shooting range multiple times. But she didn’t own a gun, didn’t want to use it. Did not want to kill. She looked down at her hands, at her grip on the pistol, and realized she was shaking just as uncontrollably as Jamie.)

They exchanged a glance, Jamie looking up from the floor of the shed where she was taking one other thing from the duffel. Her hair fell across her cheek, and she pushed it back with her fist as she stood up and crammed the object in her hand into Joan’s pocket. Mouth to Joan’s ear, her breath the only warm thing in the world, she whispered, “If you lose the gun, somehow, use the knife. And if something happens, if I don’t make it out, remember your key—"

“The dossier? You said, you said that it wasn’t real,” Joan hissed. With her free hand, she grabbed the front of Jamie’s robe. _If I don’t make it out…_

“It isn’t, not in the way you meant it, but it exists for a reason.”

“Jamie—“

“Quiet, darling. There’s a pair of James’s old work boots somewhere in the shed. Put them on. Follow the path behind the house all the way through. The neighbors are but a ten minutes’ walk. Don’t say anything else, Joan. Let go of me, please, I’m going inside.”

The words didn’t register for a moment, but then Jamie leaned back, disengaging from Joan’s grasp and mouthed _stay_ so forcefully Joan could only think to comply. It was once Jamie was at the back door, her hand at the knob, that Joan remembered herself, said, “ _Wait_.” But it was too late, and not enough: a hard rasp that didn’t carry, wouldn’t halt Jamie’s progress.

Five full seconds passed before the first few shots rang out. Joan had one boot on, was looking on finding the other when she stopped, a different cold working its way down her spine when she saw a muzzle flash in one of the upstairs windows; then she heard more shouting, more gunfire. More, until— Until it stopped. When it didn’t continue again for a few more moments, when all that Joan heard was her own labored breathing, she remembered to put on the other boot. Big as they were, she laced them as tightly as possible before making her way slowly, carefully around the edge of the house. Jamie had told her to walk to the neighbor’s, but Joan couldn’t, would never.

She crouched—arms crossed, chilled down to the marrow—for minutes, waiting, waiting. A fresh, unwanted flurry began; she felt flakes on her nose, her eyelashes. She didn’t blink them away. She stared at the front of the house, stared at the black car, its headlights illuminating the road, that sat just yards away. Where was the driver? Inside the car, or in the house? Impossible to tell from Joan’s vantage point.

Her feet were numb now. She worried, fleetingly, about hypothermia—and then not at all when the front door opened and two men came into view. They flanked Jamie, who had been allowed to get dressed, at least. Who followed wearily, staring at the ground with a murderous rage on her face. She had dressed in clothes Joan recognized as her own.

Maybe it was the dead cold, maybe it was seeing Jamie dragged off to the car, a streak of blood staining her cheek, maybe it was the shock of it all in combination that fogged Joan’s brain, because later she wouldn’t remember what she had done, later it would be told to her, and it would be like something out of a dream. 


	58. The Red Herring

“Tell me again.”

“Joan, please.“

“ _Tell me again_.”

“Your first shot went wide, but it surprised us. All three of us. I was sure you’d gone, and to see you there—”

“You recovered.”

“Yes. Faster than them, at any rate. Fast enough.”

Jamie was driving. Not recklessly, but at a rate of speed inadvisable for anyone not familiar with the mountain, with handling a car in inclement weather. Jamie, it seemed, was quite familiar.

(There was still blood under Joan’s fingernails. She picked at it while a knot lodged in her throat.)

“And then?” she asked, voice thick. She had only started asking once they had been back in the house and hurriedly gathering their belongings. There were another two dead men inside. One upstairs. The second in the hall leading to the back door. During those precious minutes of racing to get out, Jamie had issued a perfunctory recounting of events. Joan didn’t want a play-by-play. She wanted to know the why of it. She wanted the truth.

At Joan’s prompting, Jamie continued tersely:

“And I saw an opportunity. One man aimed for you. The other I went at with my teeth. He dropped his gun. We struggled. I heard the gunshot, but I couldn’t turn to look. I couldn’t see…” Joan felt Jamie’s stare, felt it last a palpable two heartbeats before she was forced to look back at the road. Joan gazed at her peripherally, seeing only that she was gripping the steering wheel tightly, squeezing it. When she shifted gears, it was with angry deliberation.

Jamie asked, “D’you remember at all now?”

Flashes. Vague images. More and more as the minutes wore on. More and more as Jamie talked. Joan remembered hearing her scream at some point. She remembered being shocked by it.

“Who were they?”

“I told you—"

“Yeah, right. Winthrop’s men. So how did they find us?”

“The Interpol email, would be my guess.”

“That quickly?”

“Not so quickly. They’d have your originating location from that email. From there it wouldn’t take much to piece it together if they accessed local surveillance. They’d know we took the train, and to which location. They would see whose taxi we entered upon leaving the station. Money buys quite a bit of ingress.”

Joan closed her eyes. Saw a thin spray of dark red hit white snow. Then an ever-expanding puddle of black under the man she’d shot. Once, in the chest. That was all. One was all it took. When she had trained with Marcus Bell he had told her: _You use your weapon in self-defense, and when you fire, you shoot to kill._

“You were on the ground,” Joan murmured. “You, and the other man.”

“We were struggling,” Jamie repeated, as if there had been any chance she could win. As if he hadn’t outweighed her by a good sixty pounds. As if things could have gone any other way.

“He had his hands around your throat.”

And there they were—the marks on Jamie’s mottled throat, the size and shape of a big man’s fingers.

“He wouldn’t have killed me.”

“It looked like it to me.”

“He needed to incapacitate me so he could turn back for his gun, and for you.”

They were in the men’s Mercedes now. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke and penetrating cologne. Joan lowered the window, just enough for bracing air to hit her in the face for a few seconds before raising it again.

“I thought he was going to kill you.”

“He would have killed _you_ ,” Jamie said, stern; adamant.

“You were too close. I couldn’t take the shot.”

“I’m glad you had the knife, then.”

They were quiet for a long time. Jamie drove on, through the mountains, winding down until the road turned flat and the view gave way to night-shrouded cityscapes.

When Jamie spoke again, it was gentle: “I don’t expect you to feel good about it, darling.”

Joan rubbed the side of her face, turned so her forehead was on the chilled window. Said, “Where are we going?”

“London.”

She swiveled to look at Jamie, who was still staring at the road.

“Why?”

“Lionel’s in London. The thing he wants is in London. And London is where he will die.”

Joan’s jaw clenched hard. “The thing he wants?”

“The dossier. Not the red herring I showed you—though it’s what I would have handed over had his men been successful in taking me to him—but the real thing. I never spoke directly about it, but he knows I have valuable information.”

“That’s why he didn’t kill you in Hong Kong.”

“Perhaps. He had to make it look good for Wei, and he was taking a risk I would indeed die, but given what we know it’s got to be the reason he didn’t finish me off. It’s why he surveilled my hotel room even after I was supposedly dead, and why he was so surprised when you retrieved my money and passport. Perhaps he thought you were safeguarding the dossier.”

“What’s in the red herring, then? You wanted me to go back for it.”

Jamie glanced at her, briefly. “Code. Embedded code that would lead back to the genuine article. Something only a very talented mind would find.”

“Something for Sherlock. You didn’t think I’d destroy it the way you asked.”

“I was sure you wouldn’t. That sort of information is extremely valuable to the authorities. It could bring down entire criminal syndicates.”

Joan couldn’t muster more than a choked sigh, but after a moment she did say, “At every turn, I feel more and more like your pawn. So what now, Jamie? Our fingerprints— _my_ fingerprints, _my_ DNA—are all over that house, those bodies. What happens now?”

This time, when Jamie turned to look at her, it was with an intensity that went through Joan like a bolt, like a bullet.

“If you think I would ever let anyone harm you, you don’t know me, Joan. London’s the place, darling. It’s where I safeguard our future.”


	59. Chalon-sur-Saône

Future.

Joan could not find any suitable reply, could not in that moment do anything but tuck her face into the crook of her elbow and close her eyes, the dim glow of moon and stars and headlights fading into nothing behind her eyelids. She had not considered any kind of future in the last hour—not her own, not Jamie’s. Not a mutual one. She had never considered a mutual one. With eyes closed, she ignored the certainty in Jamie’s voice. Ignored all of the words she could have said to counter it. This wasn’t the time, and she was tired.

She looked up only once, when they stopped briefly at the Swiss/French border–and there she had been sure that, somehow, improbably, they would be found out. But, no. Jamie was charming. She smiled as she told the frontier guard she had nothing to declare and if he couldn’t see how much that smile was costing her, how the strain of it hardened her face, Joan could.

The car, Jamie explained as they drove on, was Swiss-registered, and had a vignette, an autoroute sticker that paid for motorway tolls. “I imagine they can track it that way,” she said.

“Won’t that be a problem?” Joan asked wearily.

“Not if we keep moving. We can leave the car in Paris, take a train to Le Havre, and from there cross the channel on ferry. Although…”

It was past daybreak, and there was slight congestion on the motorway now. Joan stared out the window, at the French countryside, and wondered what it would look like under different circumstances.

“Although?” she braved.

“I’m famished, aren’t you?”

Joan looked at her, incredulous. “No.”

“But you must be. You hardly touched your supper, and it’s been hours—”

“Jamie, what are you talking about?”

Jamie ran her fingers through her hair, looked back at the road, at the traffic that had begun to speed up.

“I’d like to stop and have breakfast with you. I’d like a shower, and a nap. There are ways, Joan, to go undetected. We can even keep the car for a bit. I’ll just need to make a phone call or two.”

Joan sat up in her seat, realized just then she’d been hunched over for hours. Her back protested, spasmed. “God,” she murmured. “You just said—”

“I know what I said.”

“You said that we needed to get to London. So why don’t we just get to London? Why don’t we get to him before he gets to us? Isn’t that what you want? You get your revenge on Lionel Winthrop and somehow, magically, this fixes itself?”

Jamie’s jaw twitched a moment before she allowed an ugly smile.

“Magically…” Jamie breathed a laugh. “Lionel will get what’s coming to him, but that’s separate and apart from what I’ll do to resolve our current predicament.”

“Fine. I’ll bite. Tell me. Tell me what it is you’re planning to do, Jamie. What have you got up your sleeve this time?”

Jamie glanced at her. “I’ve been reckless. What happened at the house should never have happened.”

“I don’t— I don’t want to talk about that. Not right now.”

“And why not? It’s why you don’t trust what I’m about to do. It’s why you’re questioning me.”

“If you think I’ve ever trusted—”

“I don’t make mistakes often, Joan, but it seems I cannot help myself when I’m around you.”

“What, you’re blaming _me_?”

“No, I’m blaming myself. I’m saying that I was distracted; that I allowed myself that distraction when I could least afford one. I was rash, impulsive—all of the qualities I despise in others, the defects I thought I’d left behind with youth, I embraced wholeheartedly, and to our detriment.” She paused. “I thought we had time, and when it became apparent that we didn’t, I failed to care.”

“Time for what?” When Jamie didn’t answer, Joan pressed, “Time for _what_?”

No reply, just Jamie shaking her head, her gaze glued to the road. Joan rubbed her face, tipped her head back against the seat, and sighed.

“Okay. Why aren’t we rushing to London, then?”

“I must consider my next moves very carefully.”

“More games,” Joan murmured.

“The game of my life, Joan. And yours, as well. Events must follow precisely, and unfortunately I cannot do this alone.”

“Who are you contacting?”

“Not me. You. Mr. White at Interpol, for one. Your American Justice Department.”

_That_ was startling. And now Jamie held Joan’s complete attention.

“ _Why_? What are you doing? What is this?”

“A straight-forward exchange, nothing more. But not yet. Not until I’ve had a moment to think things through. Whatever happens, darling, you’ll be taken care of.”

“Tell me.”

Jamie smiled again. “Why? Sherlock’s taught you to deduce, hasn’t he? You’re clever. So, deduce, Joan.”

“There’s only…” Joan thought about all of the ways in which this could play itself out, in which Jamie could manipulate the stakes. “You wouldn’t bargain with that,” she said, staring at Jamie’s profile, looking for a reaction. “You wouldn’t.”

Jamie’s mouth became an enigmatic curve.

“You’d be surprised,” she said. “You’d be surprised what I’d do for you.”

Joan bit her tongue. It was too much. There was no way it was real. No way Jamie wasn’t playing another long game.

“So now what?” she asked tightly.

“Now? Now, we have breakfast. We find a hotel—a little inn, perhaps. We can go to Versailles tomorrow, if you’d like. I should very much enjoy seeing it with you.”

“Jamie.”

“We wait, Joan.”


	60. Incendie

In Chalon-sur-Saône they found a place to stay, a quaint hotel called the Saint Jean. It was small and unassuming, not at all to Jamie’s taste, which was the precise reason Joan chose it. When the desk clerk smiled diffidently and asked how many beds they would need, Jamie did not hesitate before replying, “Two, if you would.”

They were on the second floor, in a small room cramped with twin beds and worn, oddly mismatched furniture. Out of the corner of her eye, Joan noticed Jamie curling her lip with disdain at the provincial yellow wallpaper, and that alone was worth the hotel’s modest rate.

They didn’t say much to each other as they unpacked. When she was done, Joan grabbed a change of clothes and headed for the shower. She stayed under the hot water for so long that eventually Jamie knocked on the bathroom door to ask if she was all right.

“Fine,” Joan said. She’d washed the blood from underneath her fingernails. She’d scrubbed herself raw.

Afterward, she let Jamie take her to breakfast, picked at a croissant while Jamie tucked into her brioche with a perverse delight.

“You’re not eating.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Jamie nodded, glanced down as she picked up her napkin and dabbed her lips with it. She took another sip of coffee before she spoke again.

“You’ll have to get over it,” she said. She might as well have been talking about a spilled drink.

“Will I?” Joan replied, raising her own cup for the first time. It was strong, bitter. “There are many things I can and have done for you, Jamie, but ‘getting over it’ isn’t going to be one of them.”

They were in an outdoor cafe with a view of the Saône, two of maybe six people taking coffee at that hour. Joan turned her gaze to the river—a greenish brown estuary, wide and slow-moving—and heard Jamie say,

“Yes, but it’s done. What’s the use in obsessing over something that’s over and done with?”

Joan kept a sour laugh between her teeth, replied, “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You mean,” Joan said, lowering her voice, “I shouldn’t worry so much about having killed a man because, what? It’s in the past?”

Jamie’s voice went chilly. “That’s exactly right. He meant to—”

Just then, a young man approached their table, said something Joan didn’t understand, though she surmised from the cigarette he held between his fingers that he wanted a light. She did recognize the word _feu_. Fire. Jamie smiled politely at him, replied breezily in French, and the young man tipped his head and went on his way.

Joan’s strange anger went with him. She slumped in her chair, took another drink of coffee, ran her fingers through her hair. Looked up to find Jamie staring back at her.

“Perhaps I haven’t made the effort to understand what this must be like for you. Try as I might, there are aspects, shades of you, I will never fully comprehend.

“Any ordinary person would feel the way I am now,” Joan said, with more bite than she’d intended.

Unsurprisingly, Jamie’s gaze hardened. “Yes, well, perhaps that’s true—although I’ve never had much of an interest in what’s ordinary.”

Joan sighed. Lowered her eyes to her plate, tore the croissant to bits without bringing any of it to her mouth. “I just—I need some time to process, that’s all.”

Jamie finished her coffee, stood up, said, “Take as long as you need. I’m afraid I’m a bit tired. I believe I’ll be heading back to our room.”

When Joan looked at her, she recognized that Jamie did indeed look tired, worn and frayed at the edges. Her grip on the back of the chair was tight as she leaned into it. She was suddenly and frightfully pale.

“You’re still convalescing,” Joan said, feeling a fresh surge of sympathy, of regret. “Go. Rest.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“Only if you really need me to. Do you?”

After a brief pause, Jamie straightened. “No, I can manage alone.”

“All right. I’m going for a long walk. I can meet you back at the Saint Jean in…” Joan had not reset her watch. She asked Jamie for the time.

“Twenty to nine.”

“Ten, ten-thirty, then.” She watched Jamie slip into her jacket. “Unless you need me?”

Jamie offered her a tight smile. “No.” She took a cell phone out of her pocket, typed something into it before offering it to Joan. “There’s one contact there, and it’s to my second mobile. Should any eventuality arise.”

It was a prudent request. Joan took the phone and put it into her pocket, stepped closer to slip her hand under Jamie’s coat. She touched her side; Jamie held very still.

“I’ll check it when I get back.”

“It’s fine.”

“No fever, right?”

“No. No fever.”

“The snow, the cold, the drive— It’s normal to be tired. You had a bad night.”

“You as well.”

Joan nodded, feeling they had reached some kind of understanding, at least, as Jamie dropped ten Euros on the table and turned around to leave. They hadn’t said good-bye, but they’d softened against each other, if only for a moment.

As she walked, Joan kept to the river, trying and failing to clear her mind of the night’s events. She went so far she was afraid she would lose her way back to the hotel. By the time she was getting ready to turn around, she happened on a pay phone and it didn’t take long for the idea to take hold. She backtracked to a convenience store, and managed to convey to the clerk that she needed to buy a calling card.

When she returned to the phone, she dialed the card’s code, and then a number she knew by rote.

It went straight to voicemail.

“Hey. It’s me. I don’t know where you are right now, or what you know, exactly, but we really need to talk. I’m at a pay phone right now, but you can dial me back at this number.” She gave him the number to the phone Jamie had just given her. “I’m not sure Moriarty wants to contact you just yet. She’s sure that you’re coming, but she’s waiting you out. I’m not sure why, and it’s too long to explain what I think is happening. Anyway, whatever you’ve pieced together, I’m sure you have... lots of questions. You’ve probably figured out that my cousin Claire is fine, and that it’s Jamie I’ve been with. It was Moriarty all along, Sherlock.”


	61. Confessional

Joan sat at the banks of the Saône for another hour after making the call to Sherlock, clutching Jamie’s phone, willing it to ring. It didn’t, and the minute the hour was up she tucked it into her coat pocket and began her walk back to the Saint Jean.

It took another thirty minutes to reach the hotel, and all the while she felt like a sleepwalker, like everything at her periphery was blurred and part of a hazy, Brechtian dream. The people she passed by on the sidewalk became part of the drama, and if they glanced at her she felt their detached judgment when there was no reason for it. Maybe she was getting sick. The flu might explain the nascent nausea, the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. But then, so might loving Jamie Moriarty. So might killing a man with her bare hands. When she looked down at them, Joan saw that they were clean, clean, clean.

She took the stairs up to the second floor of the hotel, shrugging out of her jacket, noting the tepid heat of the building’s furnace as she passed by an air vent. She stood in front of the door to their room for a full five seconds before pulling out the key to unlock it. It wasn’t that she was scared. There was little room for fear in her life. It was the feeling that she was living in a half-truth—that nothing she could do or say would unfurl the reality of their situation any faster, make it any clearer—that was doing her in.

When Joan opened the door, she glanced over at the bed Jamie was lying on. Jamie’s eyes were open; she was waiting.

“Tell me,” she said, and Joan wondered what it was that was on her face, what emotion or emotions she was inadvertently transmitting.

She didn’t answer. She stepped into the room and dropped her coat and bag on the empty bed. She sat down and slipped off her boots. She rubbed the back of her neck, which was stiff with tension.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, as steady as she’d ever felt in an operating theater. Inside, her guts were roiling with the secret that would soon spill out of her; and with the tableau Jamie presented, lying in her underwear and a tank top as though it were the middle of summer instead of the dead of winter. “Aren’t you cold?”

Jamie shook her head. “Come here,” she beckoned, dropping the impassivity from her expression as she held out her hand. There was something strangely vulnerable about the way she reached out. Something sad about the set of her shoulders as she went to her knees on the mattress and slouched towards Joan.

And Joan went to her, undressing along the way, taking a slow, uneven path, letting her gaze connect and drift from Jamie’s until her stare was unavoidable, the magnet that dragged Joan down, down.

The tank top disappeared over Jamie’s head and as soon as it was gone Joan put her lips to Jamie’s breast, sighed at the way her entire body bent into the contact. She leaned away, looked at the gauze that covered the healing wound that had sealed their fates together. She peeled back the tape and saw nothing worrisome; a scar would remain.

“Forget that,” Jamie said, and Joan liked the impatience in her voice. She wanted to say, _That’s how I feel. That’s how I always feel when I’m with you_. Instead, she readjusted the gauze, covered the wound. The tape held when she pressed it in place. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“I hardly feel it.”

Joan kissed Jamie’s chest again, drifted down her sternum, across her ribcage, felt it when her breathing faltered at the mouth on her nipple, the hand between her thighs.

“Not at all?” Joan murmured.

“Only—” Jamie’s voice was a wisp, a thread Joan followed with her mouth until they were kissing so desperately it almost didn’t matter what else they had meant to say. They kissed and kissed while Joan stroked Jamie, the sun in her mouth and on her fingertips. They didn’t stop until Jamie came with a hard trembling, lips falling away from Joan’s, landing on the side of her neck as Jamie shook, still gasping for air.

They didn’t move, not for a long time, not until the sweat on their bodies grew chilled did they go under the bedcovers, switched positions so that it was Jamie hovering over Joan. Her cheeks were still pink when Joan cupped her face.

“I called Sherlock,” Joan said quietly.

The faintest of smiles lifted Jamie’s lips.

“I’ve been waiting for that.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re in trouble and you don’t trust me.”

“Jamie—”

Jamie interrupted with a hard, stinging kiss.

“Did you tell him where we are?”

“No.”

“Not where we’re staying?”

“No. Only the number of the phone you gave me.”

Jamie got out of bed. “Where is it?” she asked.

“In my coat. The inside pocket.”

Jamie retrieved it. Joan watched her open the back of it, take out the SIM; watched her disappear into the bathroom and heard the toilet flush a moment later.

When Jamie got back into bed, she kissed Joan again, reached for her. And Joan didn’t fight it. Whatever it was that kept bringing them back together, she couldn’t fight it.

“He’ll find us anyway,” she whimpered when Jamie shifted down the length of her body and dropped open-mouthed kisses to her hipbone, the inside of her thigh.

“Darling,” Jamie whispered throatily, pushing Joan’s knees apart, “I’m counting on it.”


	62. A Reckoning

When Joan woke up the light in the room had gone dim and her arm was numb with the weight of Jamie’s shoulder pressing down on it. She shifted and got it out, felt familiar white noise pulses up and down the limb as she stretched it out and stared at the ceiling, at the flicker of light that filtered through the room’s curtains.

“I suppose we’ll need a bigger bed after all?” Jamie murmured sleepily.

“You could have asked me when we checked in,” Joan said, turning to look at her. It was still odd catching Jamie half-awake, seeing that keen, alert eye of hers dialed down to something almost human.

“I could have done,” Jamie agreed, nuzzling closer, draping her leg across Joan’s as she yawned against the side of her neck. “A bad habit I’ll have to curb, I suppose.”

It stunned Joan, how normal it felt; how much it reminded her of early mornings with any of her other partners, of the lazy whiling away of hours spent doing nothing but talking and making love. She couldn’t remember whether she had ever felt about any of them the way she felt about Jamie now. It seemed impossible.

“Yes,” Joan said, her voice quiet as she felt Jamie’s lips gently meander across her shoulder, “you should.”

She closed her eyes and sighed.

“Don’t do that, I’ll think I’ve done something wrong.” Jamie stopped her kisses; Joan felt her rise up on her elbow, felt her staring. Her hand was on Joan’s stomach, fingers splayed and warm.

After a brief silence, Joan said, “You’re counting on Sherlock finding us.”

When Jamie didn’t say anything, Joan opened her eyes; saw Jamie’s brief irritation at the interruption of their idyll.

“Yes, but you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Then why wouldn’t you just let him track the phone? And why not just let me tell him where we are, for that matter?”

“Because I don’t want him to think you’re luring him here at my urging.”

“Why would he think that? I’m not in your thrall, Jamie.”

Jamie smiled. “Aren’t you?” she asked, her hand slipping down to cup Joan’s sex.

It was a game. Joan knew it was a game, a taunt, but she was still angered by the insinuation. She pushed Jamie’s hand away, turned her head when Jamie tried to kiss her.

“Don’t.”

And even though it faded quickly, it was an extraordinary thing to see the dismay on Jamie’s face at being rejected. Soon, however, her features turned blank and rigid as she turned to leave the bed. Feeling that she’d won something terrible, Joan grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her back onto the too-soft mattress, pushed her into it, kissed her, then, not in any way that could be misconstrued. It wasn’t loving, or soft, or any of the things it could have been. It was punishing and raw, and as she wrapped her fingers around Jamie’s hair and held her in place, Joan felt a surge of ugly pleasure. She shifted, her knees pinning both of Jamie’s arms to the bed, noting with satisfaction Jamie’s swollen lips, parted with surprise, and the blush coloring her chest as it rose and fell, rose and fell.

“Why do you need him?”

As Jamie’s surprise wore away it slowly became wonder; curiosity.

“Oh,” she said, “is this how you like it, then? I would have obliged you earlier, Joan. Me, on my knees, and you with a strap in your hand?”

“Answer my question.”

Jamie licked her lips, looked away from Joan.

“Access,” she said, her tone shifting serious.

“You have access.”

“Legitimate access, Watson. I can’t buy that.”

“Legitimate access for _what_?”

“For when you turn yourself in.”

The room turned cold and instantly Joan fell back, releasing her hold on Jamie, who sat up to run a tellingly shaky hand across her face.

“Go on,” Joan said, sorry to hear a hitch in her voice.

Jamie went on: “I thought that you would surely have to, after Bern. And I see the doubt in your eyes—”

“Go _on_ ,” Joan repeated.

Whatever it was she was thinking, Jamie kept it to herself. She had trained her face into a beautiful nothingness, and Joan thought, not for the first time, _Why do I love her?_

And then Jamie said:

“No one will blame you for anything. Whatever you’ve done to assist me, I’ll be sure that the authorities know it was done because you were coerced, because I threatened your family’s welfare. I used you because you bested me and I wanted revenge. I kept watch over you; I sent you threatening messages. There are witnesses—Alfredo Llamosa, your mother, Sherlock. They’ll all corroborate that I’ve gone so far as to visit you in New York to keep you living in fear of me. Humbert Fitzroy was _my_ tool, sent to keep you in line. I used your fear to strong-arm you into shuttling me out of Hong Kong, and you stayed with me because I assured you I would hurt everyone you love if you didn’t. In Bern, I killed Lionel’s men, Joan. All of them. Once we’re in London, you’ll call the FBI and you’ll tell them just that.”

“I still…” Joan swallowed hard, considering the scenario, considering what it meant. She couldn’t even look at Jamie. Even the thought of it was a hot knife in her throat. “What’s Sherlock’s part in this?”

“Whilst I’m concluding my business with Lionel, Sherlock will retrieve my dossier and take it to the right people. He’ll use it. He’ll know how. The dossier will ensure that whatever the FBI or Interpol, or anyone else, truly think of your story, they’ll be forced to believe it, if only because they’ll want their hands on all of that priceless information.”

Joan shook her head. For a few seconds, she couldn’t get any words out at all.

“And where will you be, Jamie?”

It was the embrace that scared Joan. When Jamie pulled her into it, it immediately felt like something different. Like something strange and deep and intimate.

“My dear, Joan,” Jamie whispered in her ear. “Whatever happens between me and Lionel, whoever wins, we’ll both be dead.”


	63. Hours Enough

“And you think I’m going to go along with this?”

Joan pushed Jamie back enough that she could look her in the eye without letting her go. Her fingers were wrapped around Jamie’s forearms, and Jamie’s hands gripped Joan’s shoulders tightly, tightly.

“I think you will. Once Sherlock’s arrived, once he agrees with me that it’s the only way...”

“Fuck you, and fuck Sherlock. What about what _I_ want? Where the hell is _my_ say in all of this?”

The vehemence in Joan’s voice made Jamie flinch, but she remained calm as she answered, “This _is_ what you want. This is what you’ve _wanted_. Back at the house, you’d packed your bags, remember?”

“Because I was angry.”

“Because I lied to you. But what does it matter now? You’ve known from the start. You’ve known all along that I’ve nothing to offer you. Think of the alternative, Joan. I take you to London, I make you an accomplice to Lionel’s murder, the police connect you to all of the events that have led up to it— Darling, let me do the honorable thing for once, won’t you?”

“Then forget about Lionel!” Tears of frustration sprang up in Joan’s eyes and she swiped at them with an anger and helplessness that nearly overwhelmed her. She squeezed Jamie’s arms, released them and took her by the face, pulled her closer. “Forget about him and come with me. Use the dossier for yourself, for both of us. Maybe you can—”

Jamie shook her head, closed her eyes.  
  
“I cannot do that, Joan. I can’t.”

“Why not?” Joan asked, her throat closing in on itself, her fingers sliding into Jamie’s hair, pressing against her scalp. She pulled her closer still, so that their heads were pressed together and she could hear and feel Jamie’s own uneven breathing. _This is costing her, at least_ , Joan thought. _She feels it_. “Why not?”

“Because,” Jamie said, “if it must end, I will be the one to end it. He needs to die, and I need to go with him.”

“Stop _saying_ that.”

“Listen to me, Joan. Listen to me carefully, all right?” They kissed, but it was hardly a kiss—only Jamie’s lips slipping briefly over Joan’s. “Moriarty _must_ die. Do you understand? After this, there is no going back. I’ll not go to prison, and I certainly won’t allow Lionel Winthrop to take what I built up from nothing for his own.”

Joan grit her teeth when all that she wanted to do was scream. Instead, she left Jamie, left the bed and the room altogether. She went to the bathroom, ran the sink faucet cold and splashed her face. Rubbed it, pressing her palms against her eyes.

“Joan.”

She looked up, dripping water, to see Jamie standing at the doorway.

“Wait,” she answered roughly, grabbing a towel to hold against her face, willing the situation to resolve itself in her mind. Waiting for it to make sense. Waiting for acceptance. That didn’t come, but by the time she dropped the towel onto the counter, she felt steadier, and when she spoke, she sounded almost calm:

“I can’t be here anymore.”

“What?”

She wanted to leave. She wanted to pretend that they weren’t headed towards one, final resolution. Right there and then, Joan wanted nothing more than to escape everything. Even herself.

“I want to get away. From this room, from—” Joan paused. “I want to go. I don’t know— To Paris? Will you take me?”

Jamie’s gaze went from confused to searching.

“Now?” she asked. "Are you sure?"

“Yes. Right now. How long will it take to get there?”

“A few hours, I think.”

“Do you know what to do about accommodations once we arrive?”

Jamie nodded.

“And do you mind?” Joan asked, not that she cared if Jamie did.

But Jamie said, “No, of course not. I’ll pack my things,” like it didn’t matter at all. And maybe it didn’t. Maybe this was what Jamie had meant back when she had told Joan that she was looking for time, because what they had of it was quickly running out.

—

They showered and dressed and were on the road within the hour.

It was past four and the highway was congested with traffic. The car still stunk of cigarette smoke and cologne. Joan rolled the window down, ignored the chill air, and said,

“I’ve never been to Paris.”

“You’ll adore it. We’ll walk down the Champs-Élysées and pretend to be tourists.”

“Aren’t we, though?” Joan asked. “I’d like that.”

“Where else would you like to go? The Eiffel Tower? The Louvre?”

“Doesn’t matter. Anywhere.” She put her hand out the window, felt the wind rush through her fingers, kept her gaze fixed on the darkening sky as she said, tired, “My biggest problem is that I’m in love with you, Jamie.”

For a moment, Jamie didn’t say anything, then she took Joan’s hand, circled her wrist briefly before releasing it.

When she did speak, it was with an airiness that belied her words: “No, darling. I do believe that your biggest problem is that I’m in love with you.”

Joan glanced at her, at her pursed lips, at her hands, which were clenched white around the steering wheel.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Joan concluded, her gaze drifting back to the horizon, to the sun that dipped and was rapidly vanishing beyond it.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Joan. It matters. It makes all the difference.”

Joan looked back at her, astonished, but Jamie only saw the road ahead.

“How does it matter?”

What was the smile that appeared on Jamie’s face? Did it bend into defeat?

“We’ve hours enough to answer that question, my love. Days enough.”

“That’s not enough time,” Joan said. If Jamie was defeated, then she was angry. A rage lived inside of her.

Jamie seized her hand as she had seized her heart. The grip was painful. It held fast.

“No. It will never be enough.”


	64. [Interlude #14]

She spun the globe with two fingers, watching the revolution whilst, behind her, Joan walked the breadth of the room, inspecting, cataloging. She was a true detective, Joan was. Hers was a natural curiosity, and in that moment there was nothing she was more curious about than the contents of Jamie’s minuscule, Paris flat.

“Were you expecting something different?” Jamie asked, watching as Joan traced the dusty spines of books that hadn’t been read in ages. Five years since Jamie had last set foot there, and already it stunk of rot and disrepair. She poured herself two fingers of Scotch, and thought, _Well, this must be home, then._

Either Joan hadn’t heard or she preferred not to answer straightaway. She pulled a book from the shelf, leafed through it without spending much time on any one page. Jamie didn’t particularly like the scrutiny, but she tolerated it, turned back to the globe and gave it another spin. She put her finger to it, stopped it neatly. She laughed when she saw she’d landed in the Black Sea.

“What’s so funny?”

“Us,” she said, pouring another drink. Beyond the desk on which the globe sat was a window with a view of the Seine. It was her favorite thing about the flat. The only reason she’d kept it, besides the privacy it afforded her. A common criminal might have called it a safehouse, but she wasn’t common, and the flat had belonged to her mother. There were, it seemed, things over which she was still stupidly sentimental. “Will you drink with me?”

Joan was good enough to put the book back on the shelf before turning back to Jamie with a feeble smile. She nodded. Jamie reached for another glass.

“And what’s so funny about us?”

It might have been a tedious question except that Joan’s smile sharpened and before Jamie could say a word, she was laughing, too—bright yet stained with a bitter hue.

She took the drink Jamie offered, looked at Jamie over the rim of her glass, her hip pressed against the edge of the desk. There was a darkness in her eyes, a weariness.

“What did you think?” Jamie asked, watching her carefully. “When you first saw me?”

“I thought Irene was pretty, and tragic. I was sad for her.” She paused, took another stroll around the room, noticing for the first time the fresco on the ceiling. “Oh, did you—?”

Jamie nodded. It was done after a panel from _The Garden of Earthly Delights_. Pure rubbish, completely the wrong medium, but as a girl the attempt had been unusually satisfying. She’d spent so many months up on scaffolding, ignoring the lures of the city beyond her walls.

Now, Joan stared at it a few more moments before continuing her train of thought.

“And when you were Moriarty—I was scared of you.”

“It didn’t show.”

“No, and I told you that I wasn’t, but I was. You scared me.”

“And do I still?”

“No. Yes.” Joan finished off her drink. “Yes,” she repeated, laughing again, rather nervously. “More now, I think.”

“But I’m harmless.”

Joan threw her a _look_.

“You,” she said, “and your fearful symmetry.”

The words tugged at Jamie’s lips; as did Joan’s dipping her head to find the bottle of Balvenie.

“My stepfather liked this brand. He kept a rolling bar in his office.”

“Yes, my father did as well. Actually, he kept a great deal of liquor, and he rarely spent an evening without a highball in his hand. I think my father would weep now if he could get at a drop of whiskey.”

“Where is he?”

“In London, institutionalized. A drunk and a madman. Madness is madness, of course, it cannot be helped. Oh, there are drugs, but my father was never good about those. He liked his wits about him, despite the drink, but after James— Well.”

Ah, there it was, resentment rising up inside of her like a cathedral. She set her tumbler down, looked out the window, tapping an idle finger against the glass as the streetlights on the Pont de L’Alma shimmered. It was a hollow anger, useless. After all, she had already bared the worst of herself. She had proclaimed her love.

It bruised her; it ravaged her; it set the whole of her aflame. If she had been in love before, then it had been a calculated sort of love. Contained, controlled. Manageable. Whatever it was that now consumed her threatened total ruin. Objectively, she knew it. Knew that she should take a scalpel to her heart and cut out the infection. The insidious thing of it was that she had no such desire. Her only desire was for Joan Watson.

“Will you lay waste to me, darling?” she murmured, her hand flattening on the cold pane.

Joan came up behind her, placed a warm hand on the small of Jamie’s back.

“No,” she said quietly, her head now against Jamie’s shoulder, her soft breath tickling Jamie’s ear. “I don’t think I want to do that.”

Jamie turned round, her back to the window. Joan arms dropped to her sides and she stood like a monolith until her features softened and she touched Jamie’s face. Touched her cheeks and the bridge of her nose and the line of her jaw. It was Jamie who stood rigidly, whose words vanished entirely.

Until Joan saved her:

“Let’s go to dinner.”

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art commissioned from [systemflaw](http://systemflaw.tumblr.com/)


	65. Montmartre

The car was gone, of course. It was sitting where they had left it just outside of the city. Wiped clean of prints, although it seemed unlikely to matter, in the long run. But Joan was thinking about it—thinking about what she might have left of herself there; thinking of the men who had occupied it, about their lives, and the ways in which they had died. Her head was clearing of the wine she’d had at dinner, which was too bad. She didn’t want the sour notes of reality intruding on their evening; she wanted their hour of forgetting to go on and on.

They walked hand in hand down the avenue, and it was strange, as if she and Jamie were living alternate lives. Joan had never been much for hand-holding, had never felt the need to make what was private demonstrably public. And yet, there, in Paris, walking alongside Jamie Moriarty, three glasses of Cabernet dulling the world just enough, it felt all right—maybe even intimate. Jamie’s grip was tight, possessive, and every time their eyes met her fingers flexed and tightened further. Joan allowed it.

“Let’s not go back to your apartment just yet,” she said, trying to stave off the anxiety—the fear, the _guilt_ —she had been wrestling with for the better part of their time together. And wasn’t love supposed to happy?

(There had been moments, yes. Moments of happiness—glimpsed, acknowledged, memorized. But that could never be enough.

_They_ could never be enough. Joan wouldn’t fool herself into believing it, even when she wanted to. Even when closing her eyes to the world, and to Moriarty, seemed like the better bargain.

Still—love. It was real, not imagined. And it wasn’t a momentary madness. It was inconvenient; reckless; irrational, but not madness. What did the French call it? _Un amour fou_? If only that could explain it.)

“Where shall we go, then?”

They took a taxi to Montmartre. Found a loud, dark, crowded bar. There, Joan had her very first drink of absinthe. Jamie watched her with a small, indulgent smile.

“My very own Toulouse-Lautrec. Is this better?”

“Yes, yes.” And, “I want you.”

“But you’ve got me,” Jamie said, after her own drink arrived and passed through her lips. They were wet. Joan stared at them and felt the prickle of Jamie staring back. “Is this truly Joan Watson? _My_ Joan Watson?”

Joan smiled as she looked away and rubbed her forehead. _Joan Watson._ Jamie’s tongue curled obscenely around her name. Maybe because of the drink, Joan liked it. Even when she turned away to ask the bartender for water, rolling her eyes at Jamie’s leering, at the indiscreet hand she placed on Joan’s thigh, she gloried in it. And it wasn’t just the heat that pulsed between her legs; it wasn’t just the flaring of hunger. It was something Joan couldn’t reach, couldn’t explain. It was whatever kept her tethered to Jamie that had nothing to do with wanting her physically. It was, perhaps, the most unfortunate truth of her life. She drank her water and turned to kiss Jamie’s cheek, lingering. When she leaned away, Joan saw that Moriarty didn’t look quite like herself. Her cheeks were stained red. Her gaze was searching, but there was nothing sharp about her.

Jamie said, “You do love me.”

Joan considered ordering another drink.

“It could all be a ruse,” she said. “I could just be playing one of your games.”

“What? Trifling with my heart? How cruel.”

“Wouldn’t that impress you?” She exhaled a bark of laughter. “Are you admitting that you have a heart I might trifle with?”

Jamie flashed a smile that quickly vanished, and said, “But you’re not like me, are you? And, anyway, you’re wrong to think that’s my sort of game. I lie about things of import; I lie to move pieces in my favor. When I tell you that I love you, it does me no good. It’s only admitting a weakness.”

“That’s not true. People want to be loved. They want to believe the people they love feel the same way. It makes them—”

“Happy? But not you, Joan. Not about this.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel.”

Removing her hand from Joan’s thigh, Jamie straightened in her seat as she called the bartender; she asked for a whiskey, neat.

“Two,” Joan added. They’d been mixing alcohol all night. “We’re going to feel like shit in the morning.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Even now...” She paused to accept her drink. “Even now, you must be considering my manipulations.”

“I’ve been considering a lot of things,” Joan replied. She took a sip of whiskey and shuddered. “I’m sure that if I knew what was inside of your head, I’d be scared witless.”

“Yes.” The corner of her mouth lifted up, revealing a dimple. “But not for the reasons you think.”

“So why, then?”

Jamie tipped back her head as she emptied the glass, drew her thumb across her lips.

“I admire you, Joan. I desire you. Beyond that, I yearn for you in ways I find...vexing. I’m as delighted about that as you are, I suspect.”

There was nothing to dispute. Joan took another drink.

Jamie continued, “And I’ve used you, haven’t I?”

“I knew what I was getting into.”

“Perhaps you only knew that you wanted to help me.”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Yes, and I was glad to accept that help. When the time comes, you’ll allow me to reciprocate, won’t you?”

Joan finished her whiskey.

“Let’s get out of here.”

They held hands again, their steps less measured, less solid. Not drunk, entirely, but past some tipping point. Joan felt heady. She almost laughed when she grabbed Jamie by the collar, pulling her into an alley, but the thought, the feeling, died in her throat.

“Tell me again,” she said. Their alleyway was dark and empty, a sliver of cobbled real estate between two buildings near the top of the hill. The mount of martyrs. It was, if only in that moment, their own secret place. Joan shivered in her coat; Jamie’s hands were cold against the small of her back.

“Tell you what?” Jamie whispered, her eyes wide and curious and beautiful.

Joan nuzzled the side of her throat.

“That I vex you.”

“You vex me, terribly.”

She took Joan’s chin between two fingers, tipped her face back. They kissed.

“And you, Joan,” Jamie said, against Joan’s lips, her breath quick and hot. “Won’t you tell me something?”

“What?”

“That you’ll trust me. When the time comes.”

Would she? Joan couldn’t say. She felt her face crumple, but she couldn’t—

The distance between them was gone. Joan kissed Jamie, and words vanished.


	66. A Place to Hide

There was a faint drizzling, and the moon was thin and thinner, falling behind clouds, reappearing. Joan walked, hands in her coat pockets, head down, watching her breath puff visibly in front of her face. Every so often, Jamie’s arm brushed against hers. The clack-clack of their boot heels was emphatic, consonant.

“I’m so tired,” she said, and Jamie murmured something that sounded like agreement as they stopped in front of her building and she reached into her purse for her key.

“I think I’ve lost it.”

“No, no,” Joan said. “I picked the lock, remember? You never had a key. Or, you did, once, but…”

Were they still drunk? Vaguely so. The world was spinning, a bit, but didn’t it always? Joan closed her eyes briefly. A familiar sound, an ambiguous little noise, came out of Jamie, and Joan was reminded, without knowing why, of their first kiss at the brownstone. Of how it had felt like a sledgehammer to the chest—violent, terminal. Joan opened her eyes, half expecting to be transported to another time and place, but there was Jamie, her hair and her blouse damp, looking down into her purse, still searching.

For all of her weariness—and she was, weary down to her marrow—Joan thought: Paris when it rains; the woman I love; no second chances. Not-sober and exhausted, she drifted into Jamie, kissed her. She had meant to kiss her the way she had earlier, near the steps to the Sacré-Cœur. She had poured herself out in a near-rage, then. Even now, she teetered, nearly veered straight into that same sentiment. But, no, the moment had passed. Jamie had accepted Joan’s frenzy. She had wanted it.

The moment was over.

There was, instead, strange tenderness.

Jamie’s unexpected sweetness: Joan swallowed it up, letting it occupy every hollow, every broken space. She was greedy about it,  just as she was hasty in her attempts to discard all doubt, all encumbrances. She begged herself to believe in the reality of it, the truth of it. _How_? became _Why not?_ And, _Please_. And, maybe, _Don’t think anymore_.

“All of this time,” Jamie whispered, “I worried that you would ruin me—but you have, haven’t you? You have and it hardly matters.”

“Vexed, ruined—you have the oddest ways of telling me that you love me,” Joan said, kissing her again, impatient, always impatient. “The door’s unlocked, isn’t it?”

“Were we so careless?”

They climbed the stairs to Jamie’s fourth floor apartment and discovered that, yes, they had been careless. But once inside, Jamie was thorough in her investigation—lights on, all remaining dark corners poked at—and nothing seemed amiss.

“I should blame you for distracting me,” Jamie said, as they discarded their coats and wound their way into the bedroom, which was ornate and dusty.

“Don’t blame me for your failures.”

Jamie’s answering look was flinty, but she blinked it away and smiled before opening the room’s one, enormous, ancient armoire; there, she found sheets and blankets wrapped up in plastic. Together, they made up the bed. When they were done, Jamie sat on the edge of the saggy mattress, arms locked behind her as she looked up at Joan. As she stood there, gazing back, Joan imagined the Moriarty she had once known and how, there, in front of her, was this other version, frayed at the edges, very slowly unraveling.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“Nonsense. Tell me.”

“I’m thinking about Sherlock.”

Jamie’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh?”

“He thought you were _the_ woman, you know? He said that. _The woman_.”

“He didn’t know me.”

“Not at all? You loved him, too, I know you did. You must have wanted— There must have been moments when you wanted him to see you. _You_ , Jamie, not the figment. Not Irene.”

“What are you getting at, Joan?”

“I don’t know.”

“You wonder how I could have loved him and still gone on with my plan. You wonder if I ever put the game on hold for him. Perhaps. Perhaps at the end, when I made that grave mistake. When I thought he’d relapsed. When I believed that he’d gone to pieces and that I could reassemble him, put him back together so that he’d finally understand that a life by my side was the only one worth living. Of course, you then proceeded to make a fool of me. And look at me now. If I tried that now, with you—and you know me, Joan, far better than Sherlock ever did—under the circumstances, under _any_ circumstances… Well, you’d laugh, wouldn’t you?”

Joan held Jamie’s gaze, swallowing hard through a surge of emotion she hadn’t been looking for. For a few heartbeats, there was only silence between them; everything that could never be said. When Jamie finally looked away, Joan was able to form strangled words:

“Don’t go after Lionel. Let him have it. Start over and do something—”

“Legal? Clean?” Jamie sneered. “Moral?”

And there she was again—Moriarty. A pang of desperation seized Joan, and she took Jamie by the face, forcing her to look up at her again.

“Please,” she said. “ _Please_.” It was angry; frightened; frantic.

Jamie’s eyes widened, scanned Joan’s face. Briefly, Joan thought she would say the unthinkable: yes.

Instead, a moment later, Jamie went stony. She pulled away, stood up from the bed and was walking away when she said, “I’m crooked through and through, Watson. I wouldn’t do it for him. What makes you think I’ll do it for you?”

Joan closed her eyes and didn’t move. She felt slapped. A fury rose inside of her. Hot tears pricked, threatened, but she kept them back. When she did move, she felt possessed by nothing but a forced numbness. She grabbed her bag of toiletries, headed into the bathroom, and took a shower so cold she was trembling when she got out. In her haste, she’d forgotten a towel, and the only thing to wear in the room was one of Jamie’s robes.

She was dripping and shaking when she opened the door, and it was then that she heard a voice, a man’s voice, and stopped in her tracks. From her vantage point, she could see Jamie through the doorway, standing stock still, arms at her sides. In one of her hands, a gun. Of course she’d kept it. It was the same one she’d had hidden in Bern.

Slowly, Joan walked towards her, towards _them_.

It was once she’d reached the doorway that she turned and the scene changed, opened up.

Joan exhaled and sagged against the door frame.

Sherlock looked at her, his face tight, his mouth set at a broken angle.

“Hello, Watson.”


	67. Full Circle

“Sherlock,” Joan said or, rather, the word fell from her mouth, terrible and leaden. He looked at her, but seemed to see past her, through her. She couldn’t know what he was thinking, but she could imagine it, could let it fill her with dread. There had been the specter of his knowing, and then there was this. This—discovery. This being exposed. She clutched the front of her robe as his gaze drifted somewhere over her shoulder. Meanwhile, she continued to drip on the floor.

His jaw worked long before he said anything, and when he finally spoke it was with a tightness that seemed physically exhausting, as though he would choke if he did anything but stand rigidly with his hands fisted at his sides:

“I thought that you would be expecting me. Your message… “ He stopped abruptly, cleared his throat. “It seems I’ve caught you in the middle of something. That is a lovely robe, but in your present state it’s safe you’ll catch a chill if you stay as you are. Perhaps you would like to—dry up. Put on some clothes?”

There was a small puddle at her feet, and she was cold. Absolutely cold. She stood there, frozen. She hadn’t even ventured a glance at Jamie, because she wasn’t sure what she would see if she did. What she would see, or what she would give away. Her body shook—once, automatically.

“Sherlock—”

“Go on,” he said, switching his attention to Jamie. Her, he stared at. When they locked on Jamie, his eyes blazed. “I shan’t leave. I’ll be right here, in this very spot, awaiting your return.”

Numb, Joan did as she was told. She walked backwards into the bedroom, closed the door. For a moment, that was all she did. She stood behind the door and exhaled, letting her forehead touch its surface. The apartment pulsed with their collective silence.

Finally, she moved. She ran a towel through her hair and changed hurriedly, slipping into the first thing she could find. Jeans and a top that she realized was Jamie’s just as she was opening the door. When Joan looked up, she saw Jamie was still holding the gun, but it was loose in her grip and her hip was pressed against the wall. There was a dangerous quality to this relaxed pose. Something feral. Those cat eyes of hers found Joan and with that one look the ball of panic sitting inside of her chest unraveled into all-out horror.

Sherlock spoke, and Jamie had the temerity to smile.

“I have tried. I thought that perhaps if I could find the right pieces, I would be able to put together the puzzle. But there are no pieces, there is no puzzle; there is nothing, _absolutely nothing_ , rational about this. And all I can think is that perhaps the rational part of you has fled, or worse, been carved out of you by madness. Meanwhile, the Devil stands there grinning at me. _How dare you?_ ” he asked, his hands out, his fingers poised to wrap around her throat. He didn’t take a step, but he loomed over her with his eyes. Moriarty did not break the gaze, did not flinch. Her smile disappeared but it hovered between them, a taunt.

“Why, we’ve flummoxed the great Sherlock Holmes.” Jamie pushed off the wall, sauntered to the nearest table and placed her gun on it. “Are you truly so confounded by something that’s been right under your nose for years, darling?”

The horror crept into Joan’s stomach, into her very guts. “Jamie,” she said, weak-voiced.  “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Jamie responded, coldly. “Have you lost your faculties, Sherlock? Have you lost your ability to reason?”

It was enough for Joan to find her anger: “Jamie—shut _up._ ”

Sherlock roared.

He put his hands over his face and let out a yell so startling, so primal, Joan didn’t know what to do. Without thought, she went to him, touched him tentatively, with great care, on the shoulder, but he recoiled.  
  
“Jamie,” he said. “Jamie, _Jamie_. How long has she been _Jamie_? How long has she been _this_? For how long, Watson? For how long have you been carrying on behind my back. I had moments, moments I was afraid for you, glimpses of this very disaster, when I thought you might do something foolish—but you’ve always been so very clever. So _where_? _Where_ is your heart, Joan?”

“Oh, leave her alone.”

Joan watched. She stood by and watched as Jamie left her side of the room and moved toward Sherlock, slowly, her head cocked; her new smile was grim, nasty.

“You know exactly what this is, why she’s here—why I’m here with her—and you’re only angry because you think she’s taken something from you,” Jamie said. “You glower so, you put on self-righteous airs, but you understand her motives totally. There is nothing about how she feels that eludes you. You don’t want an explanation from her. You want it from me.”

“ _You_ are nothing,” he snarled.

“Is that what I am?” Jamie answered. They were inches from one another. Would they tear each other apart? “Is that why you’ve traveled all this way? For nothing?”

Joan watched. Her heart thundered, and she watched.

“I am here for _her_.” Sherlock pointed at Joan, and Jamie glanced at her. Her face, pinched and hard one moment, softened the moment it settled on Joan. Joan saw the shift, but so did Sherlock, who scowled, who spat a grief-stricken, “God damn you.”

It was then that Jamie stepped back, then that she turned away from Sherlock completely. She walked to the window and looked out of it as she said, “Yes, for her. We mustn’t forget that. How about if we swallow our prides momentarily and think of our dear Watson?”

Sherlock tipped his head back, saw the mural on the ceiling, and laughed bitterly.

“Christ,” he said, before finding the nearest chair. He sat heavily and looked at Joan through a downcast eye. “Tell me, then. Tell me everything.”


	68. Bête Noire

Joan sat across from Sherlock and did as he asked. She spoke. The truth came pouring out of her, did not stop until she had told him everything; and if she left anything out it was for want of remembering. But, no, she remembered it all. His expression did not change as she related the events that had led them to this room. He was serious, but his earlier anger and judgment did not reveal themselves again. Whatever he felt he sublimated as he silently willed her to continue. For a moment, for a small, significant moment, Joan felt light, unburdened of all that she had kept from him.

And when she was done he only sighed and pressed his lips together.

"Well," he said, after a pause (and Joan wondered just what he really wanted to say, how much he was holding in for her sake). "I wish that you had called me sooner. I wish that I had been able to save you from this, from—"

"I didn’t.” Joan stopped, wondering how she would be able to say what she meant without sounding like a fool. _I did what I wanted. I own this. It’s mine_. “I didn’t want you to save me, Sherlock. I know what it looks like, what it _is_ , but I wasn’t coerced. I made these choices. _I_ did."

"Yes," he said gravely. "I meant, of course, as a friend. That I wish you had _trusted_ —I hope that you might have known, that you _do_ know, that I would do anything to keep you safe. That I care for you, however misguided your present course of action."

Behind them, Jamie released something that resembled a laugh. Joan turned to glance at her and saw that she had poured a drink, was swirling it casually. She stood half turned away from them, her arms crossed, her gaze still fixed out the window, but undeniably _in_ the room with them, listening.

Sherlock, who had been sitting back in his chair as he spoke to Joan, leaned forward when he heard the sound.

"Oh, do you find it humorous that I should express my true affection? But of course you do. I'll have you know that—"

"' _However misguided your actions..._ '" Jamie mocked him.

Sensing she was the only grown-up in the fray, Joan interrupted the next volley:

"Please," she said, looking squarely at Jamie. "Just stop."

There was mutiny on Jamie's face, but for once she did as she was told. Instead of escalating, she rolled her eyes and retreated, holding up her hands in surrender. If only, Joan thought, it could be that simple, always.

When she turned her attention back to Sherlock he was frowning but his shoulders had slumped and he seemed less likely to snarl at Jamie. How long had it been since he had gotten a good night's sleep? He always slept so poorly.

"I'm sorry," she said, watching his face relax, knowing all of the apologies in the world could never be enough, that she had betrayed him completely. "I'm sorry that you had to get involved. I'm sorry that I've worried you. I should have been honest with you from the beginning. You deserve my honesty. I just— I don't know what I thought would happen. Maybe that I'd be able to handle it. That—"

"That you would help her in secret? That you would _love her_ without my knowing it?"

“No,” Joan said, quickly. “ _No_.”

“To which, no?”

“I planned on telling you. Maybe not—not right away. But I knew that I would have to tell you when I got home. I knew that there would be consequences, and I was prepared to face them. I _thought_ I was prepared to face them. Sherlock, your friendship, our partnership, they’ve meant everything to me, and jeopardizing them was— I can’t say what it was. There are no words for what it was. As far as your second question goes, I didn’t think about that. I didn’t want to believe that it was possible.”

“But it was,” he said, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him. Not a question. Never a question. He knew.

“What’s the point of this?” Jamie, done with listening, done with her drink, moved back to the center of the room.

The look Sherlock gave her was flinty, but he tilted his head and said, “You’re quite right. We’ve more pressing matters to attend to. But now that you’re here, now that I’ve got you so very near, I don’t suppose you’ll explain yourself. What are you about, Moriarty?”

“I needed her.”

“Needed? Then you ring _me_ . You complicate _my_ life, not hers.” He raised his hand, finger pointed at Jamie as he stepped closer to her. “If you’d had any proper feeling, any consideration whatsoever, you would have left her alone just as I asked—begged of you—in our letters.”

Letters? An alarm sounded in Joan’s brain. A klaxon blared. They had exchanged letters? When? After Moriarty’s escape? _Begged you._

“Proper?” Jamie spat back. Her mouth turned down as her eyebrows drew together. Insulted. She looked insulted. “Christ’s sake, what’s proper, Sherlock? I told you once that I had found in you a mind to rival my own, and it does, darling. It does. We’ve understood one another, haven’t we? So, please, don’t be simple, not now. Don’t pretend not to know what it is I see in her, why, when I was half-dead, it was her I called and not you.”

“Yes. You’d enraptured her. _Mesmerized_ her into doing your bidding.”

“Really, Sherlock, think of what you’re saying.” Jamie looked at Joan, whose hackles were up, who was watching the display, oscillating between dismay and outrage. “Is that what happened, Joan?”

Joan put her hands over her face. She was still a little drunk, still cold. The surge of adrenaline she had felt at Sherlock’s arrival had dissipated and she was—exhausted. She was completely exhausted.

“ _Please_ ,” she said, lowering her hands, glancing between Jamie and Sherlock, “don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room. Like I’m a _child_. Forget this bullshit about you two having corresponded—which I guess means I’m not the only one keeping secrets.” Sherlock opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. “What? It’s not the same? Fine. But these are the facts. You have the truth. My being sorry about it isn’t going to change anything. It’s not going to change how any one of us feels. So we’re here now, and I’m tired.” She paused and sighed before resuming, “She has a plan, Sherlock, and I hate it, and when she tells you what it is, I think you’ll hate it, too. For different reasons, probably. You want her locked away for what she’s done. You’re not wrong. By all rights, she should pay for the things that she’s done. But, of course, she doesn’t want to go back to prison. Why should she?” Joan looked at Jamie, who stared back. “She wants her revenge. She wants her power. She wants—”

Joan stopped. She closed her eyes.

She heard Sherlock ask:

“And you, Joan? What is it that you want?”

“I should say that I want my life back. That I want things to go back to normal. That I want to go home. That I want to wake up from this nightmare knowing I don’t have blood on my hands. But I can’t. Because the truth is that I want her. And your justice, and her petty vengeance, they don’t matter to me. I am fucking tired, and I only want her.”

 


	69. SIG Sauer

The room went silent. The earlier drizzle had turned into full blown rain, and she could hear the patter of it against the windows, hard as pebbles being lobbed by some mischievous kid, or a lover in a movie trying to get his beloved’s attention. Joan could feel Sherlock’s unrelenting stare but Jamie had moved back to her window. Whatever she was thinking she kept, uncharacteristically, to herself. When Joan could, she met Sherlock’s gaze. They looked at one another for a long time before she shrugged helplessly and said,  

“I know.” 

He smiled, but it wasn’t a smile. It was grief twisting his mouth. 

“Do you? I am so very sorry, Watson.” 

“Don’t say that.” 

“How can I not? I love you, Joan, and I know what she does. So, how can I not be sorry? How can I not disapprove completely? It would be wrong to continue to keep quiet in the face of what you’ve told me. It would make me complicit in this affair, and I shan’t be that, not when it comes to protecting your well-being.” 

Joan expected Moriarty’s intercession; or a snide remark, at the very least. But when Joan glanced at her, she only saw Jamie still turned towards the window, looking preoccupied. Removed. It was disturbing, how quiet she was. 

“It’ll be dawn soon,” Joan murmured, talking through a clenching in her throat, sinking further into her chair. She tipped her head back and encountered the ridiculous fresco on the ceiling. She rolled her eyes at it. “You came at the worst time, you know? We’d just made the bed. I was going to crawl into it and sleep for years.” 

A scoff.  

“Only you would think of sleeping at a time like this.” 

“I haven’t slept since Bern. Not really.” 

“Well, go on, then. Sleep, if you must. I’ll wait.” Sherlock scratched his days’ old beard as his eyes strayed to Jamie. “We both will. If, as she has said, she has _proper_ feelings,” he winced, “then perhaps something reasonable will come together. A way out of this.” 

The idea that somehow Sherlock and Jamie would sit together and hash out a plan without her seemed ludicrous. “Something reasonable? For who? You’re crazy if you think I’m leaving you two alone.” 

“Why?” he asked, and she noted a strange challenge in his voice. “What do you think would happen?” 

Joan bit her tongue. What did she think would happen besides the obvious? Besides the sniping, besides the arch back-and-forth? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know. There had to be a current of _something_ between Sherlock and Moriarty—between Sherlock and _Jamie_. The very thought of it made Joan queasy. Jamie’s silence was slow torture. 

It was Sherlock who got up from his chair and said, “Perhaps we should get on with it, hm? What is this plan you’ve got, Moriarty? Let’s see it, then.” 

Finally, Jamie turned around. She had her hands in her pockets and her expression was inscrutable. She didn’t reply. She simply walked past them, into the bedroom. A few moments later she returned, carrying the binder, the fake dossier. She held it out for Sherlock, who took it, looking at it as though it were a bomb about to take off his hands. 

“What is it?” 

“Information. Well, a puzzle for you to solve that will lead you to information. Interesting facts—of the sort that could bring entire crime syndicates to their knees. I could tell you where the genuine article is, but where’s the fun in that?” she said. “Besides, with this you have plausible deniability. You crack the code—and you will—and you’ll have all the leverage you will ever need with the authorities to ensure Joan is protected.” 

“And you?” 

Jamie stared back at him blankly. 

“What do _you_ get,” Sherlock stabbed the binder with his index finger, “out of giving this up?” 

“Get?” A cold smile materialized on Jamie’s face. “I _get_ to lose an entire career’s worth of work.” 

He turned the binder over in his hands without bothering to open it.  

“That’s it? Not much of a plan, is it?” 

Any normal person would have run from the glare Moriarty leveled at Sherlock.  

“I mean,” Sherlock continued, unfazed, “for as long as I have known you—and, granted, much of that time I was under a grand illusion—you have never been what anyone would consider _altruistic_. Something for nothing isn’t your style, Moriarty. Nevermind this. Nevermind _losing_.” 

Stepping nearer to him, Jamie answered slowly, “I thought we understood one another. I thought we were the same, you and I. Don’t you see, Sherlock? This isn’t altruism—far from it. This is protecting what I hold dear.” 

"Right," he said. "And this is how you do it, then? By having us believe you would give up one of your most valuable assets in a time of crisis? That you would willingly strip yourself of your armor? I've seen your version of love, what you do in the name of it, and I'd like very much to keep it away from Watson. 

"Except it's too late for that," Jamie replied, stepping well into Sherlock's personal space. Joan gripped the arms of her chair. The earlier knot of horror she'd felt unravel within her returned, coiling tight and tighter, pressing against her throat. "She's told you what she wants, hasn't she?" 

"What do _you_ want?" Sherlock said, so quietly and with such menace Joan felt her legs propel her to her feet. A few steps and she would be between them, if she needed to be. 

"I want you to go and solve your puzzle, Sherlock. I want you to contact whoever it is you need to contact at Interpol and get Joan's situation straightened out. That's all of it, darling." 

"I don't believe you." 

"But it's the truth." 

"And, then? What happens after that?" 

"After that? No, I don't think I want to tell you that. No, I believe I'd like to keep that to myself." Her ensuing smile dripped of condescension, but she didn't say more, not even as Sherlock's jaw twitched and his hands curled into fists. She glided past him and took her coat off the back of one of the chairs, slipped into it. 

"Where are you going?" Joan asked, finally finding her voice. Did it tremble? 

"To look for a café. I've a tremendous headache. Shall I bring something back for you? Sherlock?" 

"You're not leaving this flat." 

Jamie smiled again, quick and false. Without reply, she walked to the table, the one on which she had placed her gun. She picked it up and tucked it into her waistband. 

"Oh," she said. "I think I will." 


	70. Nox

“Is that a threat? Am I meant to believe that you would use that gun against us?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sherlock. I expect more from you,” Jamie replied as she slowly buttoned her coat. “I told you, I have a headache and the air in this room is positively toxic.”

Sherlock laughed, loud and disbelieving. His mouth began to form words but before he could vocalize his outrage, Joan said:

“I’ll go with her.”

Not what Jamie had in mind, given the look that passed over her face, but Joan didn’t care. Better to brave Jamie’s annoyance than stand through another one of her bickering matches with Sherlock. In that moment Joan knew one thing: Jamie would leave. There was nothing to stop her. Not begging, or pleading—Joan had done enough of that. It was over. Jamie Moriarty had chosen her path. Attempting to dissuade her was pointless. 

And so Joan closed herself to the constellation of feelings that lived on the surface of her skin, each a star that flared hot and bright. Pride singed. Anger burned. Love consumed. All that Joan wanted—all that she now told herself that she wanted—was a cold and empty peace.

(No. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to escape. Most of all, she wanted Jamie. Even now that it was obvious Moriarty had made her decision, Joan wanted to climb within her, to live inside of her in a futile hope for change. That they could be together and that it would be enough. Even as the hope burrowed deep into Joan’s heart, she understood how ingenuous it was, wanting Moriarty to shed her nature.  _ I’m crooked through and through _ . Jamie’s words. Wasn’t it time Joan believed her? Wasn’t it time to let go? 

And so Joan chose the void. She chose nothingness.)

Sherlock was set on arguing about it. She could see that he wanted to, that in that room he would struggle to win at anything, and that in lieu of winning he would settle for being right. She could not blame him, but Joan was worn down to nothing, and arguing would bear no fruit.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, instead of, “I’ll bring her back.” That would have been a lie; Joan was through with lies.

“I don’t like it,” he said, stubborn, always so stubborn, so confident in his rectitude.

“No. Neither do I.”

“Are you truly doing this? Shall I adduce the evidence, give reasons for—”

“I’m not doing anything, Sherlock. I’m going to get coffee, and then I’m coming back so that we can work on that,” Joan replied, nodding at the dossier.

It was then that Jamie finally interrupted, stepping away from the door to gather up her purse. The strap over her shoulder, she took the dossier from Sherlock as he stared at her. She opened the binder to a particular page, to a file on a man named Charles Richter. Several phrases within the file were underlined. There was a sketch on the opposite page, a portrait of a man, perhaps Richter himself.

“Start here,” Jamie said, smoothing a finger across the man’s face. “You’ll find art produces its own language.”

“You don’t deserve her love,” Sherlock replied quietly, intensely.

Jamie looked at him, her gaze devoid of all of its usual sharpness.

“Yes, I know.” She handed him back the binder. “Take care with that. I knew, after Hong Kong, that you should have it. When you take it to the authorities, be sure to keep a copy for yourself. I’ve found that things stray, when they’re in official custody, or find their way into the hands of people with my sorts of enthusiasms. At any rate, there’s particular information there that’s of no use to them but that’s quite important to me, and that I think you’ll find worthy of your time. I hope that you will come to understand.”

“You  _ know _ ?”

A sigh; impatience carving a frown line between her eyes.

“Yes. I know that you won’t believe it, but I never meant to put her in harm’s way. I was desperate, frightfully desperate, and in my desperation I could only think of her.”

He tilted his head, and as he looked at her his expression shifted. 

“You are… afflicted.”

“Mmm. A terrible condition, is it not? I’ve only known it once before.”

Joan stepped away, looked away, left the room. She busied herself, changing out of the hastily grabbed blouse, Jamie’s, into one of her own. She found her coat. The coat stained with Jamie’s blood. She’d had time to have it cleaned in Zurich. Why hadn’t she? She set it aside, found the one Jamie had bought for her the day before they saw  _ Faust _ . Had that even happened? Here was the proof, but it seemed like a dream now. She slipped into the coat, belted it, put a beanie on over her still damp hair, stepped into her boots. She felt as though she were out-of-body, out of time.

When she went back into the room, Sherlock was sitting again, his hands gripping the binder, his gaze fixed across from Jamie, avoiding her. Jamie stood by the door, waiting. 

“Are you ready?” she said, when she saw Joan.

Joan nodded, said to Sherlock, “I’ll bring you back a coffee.”

“Double espresso,” he said, measured. So measured. “And a croissant.”

“Okay.”  
  
“And please don’t dally, Watson. We’ve much work to do.”

Joan did not say anything about that. She followed Jamie out the door, down the stairs, which Jamie took at a fast clip. They didn’t look at one another, didn’t say a thing until they were out of the building, down on the wet street below. The sky had a twilight glow to it, the edge of darkness before it tumbles into dawn. Jamie had had the good sense to remember an umbrella. She opened it and held it up, making room for Joan.

“The weather’s appropriate, at least,” Jamie murmured.

“Please. I don’t want to hear it.”

“No?”

“No, not yet. Let’s go. Let’s just keep going.”

They walked into the gloam.


	71. 1 + 1

Heavy, gray clouds clung to the sky, drifting, rearranging themselves. There was movement on the streets, too, the beginnings of life waking, of early morning workers hustling out of their homes and onto the sidewalks, bundled in jackets and scarves, huddled under umbrellas or braving the rain that had tapered back into a drizzle. Beneath the beanie she wore, Joan’s hair was still damp.

In that first, anemic light of day, Joan fixated on the physical. On the way the frigid air was burning her sinuses and stiffening her lungs. On the rub of her coat’s collar at the back of her neck. She had forgotten a scarf. Did she have one in her suitcase? Had she bought one in Zurich? She thought yes, but couldn’t be sure. She popped the collar and tugged at it to cover her vulnerable throat. 

They walked quickly. Or, Jamie walked quickly, and with her hand at the small of Joan’s back pushed her along, a gentle but firm touch; urgent. Jamie guided them from one street to another, and soon they were walking where they had a clear view of the Seine. 

Joan stared at its roily waters.

The coffee shop was five or six blocks away from Jamie’s apartment. Joan wasn’t looking for it, and when they arrived Jamie had to point it out. “Here,” she said, turning towards the door, pulling it open with the hand she’d just removed from Joan’s body. It felt like loss, but the air inside was warm and redolent of all of the right aromas. She sat at a table while Jamie went to order for them. Joan watched her. Watched as she ran her fingers through her hair, as she squared her shoulders and spoke to the girl at the counter. Watched as she waited. 

Joan sneezed and Jamie glanced back at her, smiled the kind of smile that spoke of all of the things they could not have. A smile that made Joan drop her gaze to her hands, which she brought up to her watery eyes, to rub them. Her fingers were still cold, but warming. 

The shop was old, and lacked the sort of charm that attracted tourists. It was of the world, real, but Joan was so weary she felt as though it were part of a dream. The lights coming from the outdated fixtures blurred and swayed. When she looked away from them, Jamie was back at the table. She had brought back chocolate instead of coffee. Joan wrapped her fingers around the cup, sipped, sighed. It was thick, hot, just sweet enough. Somehow perfect. They drank slowly and didn’t speak until they had finished.

Jamie first:

“You’ll be all right, once you’ve recovered the dossiers. You’ll go home, to New York, back to your work…”

“My work,” Joan repeated, numb. “Right.”

“And back to Sherlock, of course. Everything will be as it was for you. This will all seem like—”

“A nightmare?”

“Yes,” Jamie said.

There it was on her face—that haunted, hollow thing that clung to her eyes and the corners of her mouth, that thing Joan recognized as a tiredness that didn’t come from lack of sleep.

The truth is big when you’re vulnerable. In the dead of night. When you’re in love. Joan had cut herself open, exposed every bit of herself, muscle and sinew and bloody, beating heart. There was nothing left to show, to say. The truth was the truth, but it wasn’t revelation. It didn’t bring with it any relief, not with Jamie. 

“Are you going to London?”

“I’ll go where I must. London’s a start, I think. There’s quite a bit of work to do.”

Joan looked away, out of the rain-streaked window. 

“I didn’t want to say good-bye with Sherlock in the room, and I still feel guilty about that,” she said. When she glanced at Jamie again, she saw her staring back with an intensity that burned. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should just forget that any of this ever happened.”

“Good,” Jamie said. Her voice was tight, and that very fact gave Joan a small, bitter thrill.

“Good?”

Jamie closed her eyes for a protracted moment.

 “What do you want me to say, Joan? That I’m sorry? That I wish I could undo all of this? But I’m not sorry, darling. I don’t wish to undo any of it. If I had it to do over again, I would drag you into hell with me.”

“That’s the thing, though. We can’t undo it, and we can’t do it over again. It’s _done._ ” Joan wanted to say something cutting, something that would hurt, but she didn’t have the energy for it. All that she could think to say was, “You said that we had days.” She took a shaky breath. “Why aren’t you asking me to come with you?”

Jamie frowned.

 “Because you don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you. Sherlock was right about that.”

“And since when do you care about what you do or don’t deserve? You take and you take, Moriarty, because that’s who you are. Since when does it matter?”

There was anger in Jamie. There were flared nostrils and a down-turned mouth, fingers that closed into a fist. She sat up, but then all at once she deflated. Her face went slack. She dropped her head onto her hand and said, “Hate me, if you must. Whatever makes it easy for you, Joan.”

“I want to hate you—and when you’re gone, maybe I will—but I can’t right now. Not while I can still see you.”

 Joan put her hand out and Jamie reached for it, tangled their fingers together so hard that it hurt.

“Don’t die,” Joan whispered.

Jamie leaned over the table; Joan closed her eyes. Jamie kissed her. It was soft and tender and over almost before it began. 

When Joan opened her eyes, Jamie was gone.


	72. Stingray

When Joan was a kid, she would roller skate up and down the blocks near her house in Queens. Sometimes she would go with neighborhood friends, sometimes alone. Her skates were white, with pink laces and rubber wheels. She loved her skates and she loved skating. She was good at it, self-assured and solid on her feet; but one morning, when she was seven, she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and fell on her back. Fell so hard the pain of it knocked the wind right out of her. And though she had been hurt before, it had never felt like this, and she was so shocked at her body's inability to move that she didn't even cry. She lay on her back for a long time, waiting for someone to help her up, but no one walked by. No one saw her there, prone and helpless. She stared at the sky, blue and clear, and waited, and waited. She was seven; there had always been someone to help her up before. But not this time. She was alone. Eventually, she knew that she would have to get herself up. Eventually, she did. When the shock had worn away and she could stand the pain, she wobbled to her feet and slowly skated home. She never told her mother about the fall. She kept it to herself. It was one of the clearest of all of Joan Watson's childhood memories. 

- 

Joan held Sherlock's espresso in one hand, his croissant in the other. The rain had tapered off and the sun had broken through, but dark clouds lingered overheard. She walked back to Jamie's apartment quickly, ignoring her periphery, moving with a single-minded purpose, trying and failing to ignore the distraction in her heart. Blinders on.  

It was a mistake, but one she didn't realize until she was up the stairs, close enough to the door that she could hear Sherlock's raised voice. There was someone in the room with him, a man, but Joan couldn't hear his voice until she pressed her ear to the door, and it was then that she knew why Sherlock had been so loud. 

Lionel Winthrop was saying: 

"Lower your voice." 

"I'm sorry, what?" 

"I said, _lower your voice_. Why are you shouting?" 

"My apologies, but my ears—every time I fly, you see, I suffer from these ... clogged... ears. Haven't popped yet, I'm afraid." 

"Where's Jamie?" 

"Well, she's gone." 

"Gone _where_?" 

"To look for you, I should imagine. That's what she said, in any case, but who knows? Moriarty isn't always forthright, now is she." 

"How long has she been gone?" 

"Oh, a day or so." 

"That's not possible." 

"And why is it not possible?" 

"Because you haven't been here for a day, Mr. Holmes. Your flight arrived a few hours ago." 

"And how do you know that?" 

"Because I've been tracking you." 

"Really? Why have you been tracking me?" 

"Come now, Mr. Holmes, you know why. If M was going to be in touch with anyone, it would be you. Who else is she always in contact with, who else does she rush off to see at a moment's notice?" 

"Me?" 

"Stop playing games. Where is she going, and how long has she been gone? If you don't cooperate, there are ways to extract information that will be unpleasant for both of us. I'm not a fan of torture, but I know how it's done." 

"Do you? Well, no need. She's headed to London, perhaps, I don't know. She didn't say. She merely said she was after you— What was it you said your name was again?" 

"Lionel." 

"Right, right. Yes, it's you she wants. And she's been gone for hours. She left just after I arrived." 

"Why would she do that?" 

"Why? Because she doesn't want me involved in whatever it is she plans to do with you, my dear fellow. Nasty business. May I ask you a question?" 

"What?" 

" _How_ did you track me? You didn't have me followed, or you would've caught up to our mutual friend." 

"We've a man who works for your cellular provider. You switch phones and SIM cards quite often, Mr. Holmes, but you've been with your provider for some time, which is useful. We knew you were flying in to Paris, but It wasn't until you turned your mobile on that we could triangulate your location. D'you know what a Stingray is? Takes a bit of time, unfortunately." 

"Mm. Shan't make that mistake again, shall I? Tell me, Lionel, you speak of _we_. Besides you and these fine individuals you've brought with you, who is this _we_?" 

"My organization." 

"Moriarty's organization, you mean." 

"No, I said what I meant to say. _My_ organization. Moriarty has nothing. Oh, she has her wits, and some money stashed here and there, but she's out in the cold. So to speak."  

"Then why are you looking for her? Are you afraid? I suppose I would be, if I were you. She is a rather formidable opponent." 

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not afraid of M. But, yes, she does have one thing that I would very much like to have, and since I've been unable to catch up to her to ask her about it, you'll have to help me bring her back, Mr. Holmes. Do you know that she had a directive that you and that assistant of yours were not to be harmed? After you put her in prison, this was, and I couldn't understand it but I think that I do now." 

"Oh?" 

"You're the perfect enticement, Mr. Holmes. The one thing she's never been able to resist--" 

Joan stopped listening. She went down the stairs, left the building. She heard a car door open, heard someone call out to her, but didn't stop moving. She held on to the coffee, held on to the croissant. When a hand closed around her shoulder, she pivoted and threw the coffee cup at the man's face. He screamed. He let go. She ran. 

She ran and ran and ran until she felt a hand on her arm. It gripped hard and pulled her into an alleyway. She might have screamed then, too, and thrown a punch, but she didn't have a chance. A hand was on her mouth, a voice in her ear. 

"Shh," it said, that familiar tone; Joan almost cried with relief. When the hand fell away, she sputtered, "They've— Lionel has Sherlock." 

"I know," Jamie said, showing her gun. 

"No, he isn't alone. He--" 

Jamie pushed her aside, and Joan wasn't sure what was happening for a split second until she recovered and saw just why Jamie had shoved her.  

The man still had coffee dripping from his scalded face. 

 

 

 


	73. Batignolles

It was a stand-off. 

"Drop the pistol, Michael." 

 _Of course_ , Joan thought, amid the dozen other thoughts making her head swim. _Of course s_ _he knows him._  

Jamie had her left arm out in front of Joan and was calmly backing them deeper into the alleyway. The man, Michael, followed. They both had their weapons up. They both looked steady and determined. Joan felt as though she would collapse at any moment; she had tapped a reserve of will that was near-empty. Peripherally, she noted people walking by, caught up in their daily routines, in their prosaic lives, unable to see the danger at the corner of their eye. 

"Oh, not me, ma'am. Mr. Winthrop will be ever so happy to see you." 

Moriarty's smile was all scorn. 

"When the time comes, I'll be glad to see him, as well, but this isn't the time. Drop the pistol. I've a better aim than you." 

"Aye, but there's two targets in front of me." 

 _What a stupid thing to say._  

Jamie slowly, deliberately, stepped in front of Joan. 

"You forget who you're dealing with. You can't kill me; Lionel's figured out that he _needs_ me—not because my continued existence is a threat to his own, but because I've got something valuable that he missed, is that right? And so he needs me _alive,_ preferably unharmed as that will make it more likely I will cooperate with him. No doubt you've been instructed accordingly. He's the clever one, Michael, not you. _Don_ _'t forget_ _who I am_ , what I can do, and what I _will_ do to everyone you've ever loved when I have the opportunity. And I _will_ have the opportunity. You understand that, don't you?" 

Michael glanced at Joan. His sights were still firmly fixed on them, but his expression had shifted slightly. He was wavering. He was also reaching into his pocket. 

For his phone. 

Jamie saw it, too:  

"You're still on the same system, I see. You'll have to enter a code to use that mobile, and I don't think you can do it blind. Look at that screen, even for a moment," she said, "and I've got you. You'll be dead, but I won't stop there. I know where your children live, Michael. Your ma, your da. Your brother, Richie, your nieces and nephews..." 

And, now, there was real fear in Michael's eyes. Joan stared at them, at his face--at the angry, red burn she'd left there with Sherlock's coffee. Looking at Moriarty, at the resoluteness with which she held her gun, at the casual way in which she spoke of murdering his entire family... Joan felt his fear with him. 

 _But_ _Sherlock._ _God_ _.._ _._  

"If I do it, if I take myself out of it, will you promise you'll leave them alone? Ma'am, will you please--" 

"Of course." 

A frisson of panic went up Joan's spine. The gun that had been trained on her and on Jamie was now pointed at Michael's temple. _If I take myself out of it._  

"No. _No._ Tell him to stop. Jamie, _tell him to stop_ _._ " 

Moriarty stood implacable. Her gaze never wavered from the man who was now pointing a gun to his own head.  

"His death is to our advantage, Joan." 

"Not mine. Not _mine_ , Jamie." 

"He would've killed you." 

"But he didn't, and he won't." 

"No, but if I let him live he'll go back to Lionel and tell him everything, and we'll be forced to turn tail and run. He's filth, disloyal filth. I employed him, I paid him quite fairly—For how many years, Michael? How long was it that you worked for me before turning round and threatening my life?" 

Michael shut his eyes tight, let go of a whimper. 

"Ma'am, I--" 

"You're all the same when it's time to die. Pathetic." 

Joan grabbed Jamie by the elbow. "Stop," she hissed, and for the first time, Jamie blinked and looked away from Michael; looked at Joan. 

"Why?" 

"Because I can't stand here and let you. There's a line and I can't—I can't let you murder him because it's expedient." 

"And what about Sherlock?" 

"He wouldn't want this either. We'll find another way." 

Their gazes locked longer than was safe, but when Jamie looked back at Michael, he was as she had left him--head down, finger on the trigger, ready to do the unthinkable. 

For a moment that stretched on and on, Joan didn't know what would happen, what Moriarty would do. And, then, Jamie heaved a sigh and walked to Michael, right up to him, and pressed her gun to the middle of his forehead. 

"Give it to me." 

"Ma'am?" 

"Your weapon." 

He did. He lowered it and held it out for her to take. Jamie tucked it into the back of her waistband, under her coat, and without another word, without any kind of warning, pistol-whipped the man into unconsciousness. 

Joan stood watching, trembling, her knees finally giving out so that she had to lean against the nearby wall for support. 

"No, darling," Jamie said, picking up Joan's purse, which she hadn't even realized she'd dropped. She was still clutching Sherlock's croissant. She'd crumpled the bag into her balled fist.  Jamie took it away, threw it somewhere, tangled their fingers together, and tugged at Joan's arm, forcing her into movement. "We've got to go now. Are you all right?" 

Joan nodded. It was an easy lie to tell. 

\-- 

They walked, took the metro, a cab, walked. Where they were, Joan wasn't sure, not until Jamie turned onto another street and pointed out a hotel.  

Jamie rented the room. Jamie took them into the elevator. Jamie opened the door to the room and led them inside. Jamie led her to bed and Joan sat and didn't move and didn't talk and hardly breathed until finally she dared to look at Jamie, look her in the eyes, and that's when she began to cry.  

"I'm so tired," she said, a ragged, whispered thing. 

And Jamie only shushed her, coaxed her into lying down, and said that she knew, she knew, and Jamie held her until Joan's tears gave way to a deep and dreamless sleep. 


	74. Lick Your Wounds

The room was dark. How long had she slept? Long enough for the world to go dark again.  

Joan did not wake with a start, did not break into consciousness with dread lodged in her throat. It was a surprise that she did not. Even as she opened her eyes, she knew it was wrong to not jump straight to her feet, to _do something._ For a moment, as she blinked at the ceiling, she forgot what that something was. Then she turned her head and saw Jamie's face, her eyes soft and searching, and remembered everything. 

Even then, fear was slow in coming. Even then, regret crept in without permission.  

At first, Joan's body molded itself to the sheets, but then, fighting inertia, stretched. She arched her back, rolled her head and reached with both hands for the headboard. Finally, mostly awake, mostly aware of the urgency she should be feeling, Joan sat up, sensing all the while Jamie watching and waiting.  

"Why were you back near your apartment? I thought that you were leaving?" Joan asked. 

Joan knew there were ways to spot when someone was in the middle of telling a lie. Most people averted their eyes, or blinked too much. They touched their face self-consciously, pursed their lips. They blushed. Shook their heads for no reason, as if their bodies were denying their own words. Their smiles didn't reach their eyes.  

In that moment, Jamie did none of those things. Her gaze remained steady as she took Joan by the hand and said, "I didn't like the way I'd left you. I wanted to catch up with you before you reached the flat, to tell you..." Jamie did not continue. 

"What?" Joan said. When Jamie didn't answer, Joan lay back down, closer to Jamie, close enough to see the flutter of her eyelashes as she sighed. "You're not the sentimental type." 

"No, not usually. Not when I can help it," Jamie agreed, touching Joan's cheek. "It makes me stupid." 

"I want to go to the police." 

"Oh, Joan, you see? That's your love for him talking. Do, if you'd like, but you must know the police can't help you. They don't know a thing. Listen to me, I know that you're afraid of what might happen to him--" 

"God, of _course_ I am."  

"Then let me handle it."  

"The way you've been handling it so far?" 

The room should have turned to ice. It's what Joan expected. Maybe she was looking for a fight. Maybe she needed a cold war, a dividing line. Maybe it would have made it easier to summon anger. Instead, a flint was struck and Jamie's fingers slid along the side of Joan's face. Her thumb brushed Joan's mouth. Her hand landed on Joan's throat. 

"This wasn't my foolishness. I expected more from him, but then I suppose our feelings have driven every one of us to make terrible mistakes. I've never before made mistakes of the sort I've made since meeting you." The hand on Joan's throat tightened, briefly, before dropping away completely.  Joan did not move. She let Jamie shift and settle into her, her head against Joan's chest, her fingers now bunching the sheets at each side of Joan's hips. "You shouldn't have gone to Hong Kong, or Zurich, or Bern. You shouldn't have come to Paris. I shouldn't have called you. I should have left you in Hong Kong, or Zurich, or Bern. For your sake, not my own. My mistake wasn't in using you, it was in thinking I could then save you from this association. It was in thinking Sherlock's love for you wouldn't mean he'd rush here without taking all of the necessary precautions. Why was he so stupid? Why am I?"  Jamie moved again. The flat of her hand rested between Joan's breasts. "I can feel your heart." She kissed Joan's chin, her cheek, under her ear. She whispered into it, wounded, defeated: "You cost me one billion dollars, you put me in prison, you looked down your nose at me, and I fell in love with you." Her palm grazed Joan's breast once, twice, before cupping it hard; Joan hissed, felt Jamie's hot sigh chasing it. "I thought your love would kill mine, but it hasn't. Christ, Joan, what have you done?" 

 _Shup_ _up._ Did Joan say it out loud? Did she press it into Jamie's mouth as she took her hand and dragged it down her body, between her legs. Did she say it again as she unbuttoned her jeans and reached for Jamie in the next moment, as they struggled with one another? Struggled into one another, moving recklessly, quickly, seeking, straining. They had so little time. _Shut up. Faster. Oh, please, just--_  

Breathing into one another, mouths open, gasping. Sweat stinging Joan's eyes.  

They stayed that way for a minute or two, no longer, before Joan pulled away, rolled out of bed, buttoning her pants, thinking of a shower. How quickly could they get this underway, this plan they didn't have?  

Joan glanced at Jamie, who was standing, rearranging her clothes. Her mouth was bruised. 

"Did you take his phone? Michael's?" 

"Yes." 

"Where is it?" 

"In my purse." 

Joan found Jamie's purse, opened it. Inside: passports, makeup bag, wallet, gun. Another pouch. Joan took it out, held it up. 

"Here? When did you get a Faraday pouch?" 

"In Zurich." 

"Sherlock had no reason to believe his phone had been compromised, you know. He changes them out often." 

"No, but he's the paranoid sort, so I would have expected the precaution. It doesn’t matter now, does it?" 

"Are you going to call Lionel?" 

"Yes, of course." 

"When?" 

There was a pause. The air in the room was warm, smelled of sex, of them. Jamie ran her fingers through her hair, crossed the distance between them. She took the pouch. Briefly, she kissed Joan. 

"Now, darling," she said, mournfully. "Now." 


	75. sine qua non

"Now? And what will you say to him, exactly?"

Joan knew that: She was awake. Her eyes were open and focused, and she was awake, aware, alive. Somewhere in Paris, Sherlock was being held by Lionel Winthrop, but he, too, was alive. That much Joan knew. That much she had to believe.

Across from her, Jamie Moriarty was barefoot. Her hair mussed, tangled. Convalescence and travel had turned her scrawny, whittled her down to her essence. Her cheeks were sharp. Eyes sharp. Sharp elbows, and tongue. Moriarty--a sharp, dangerous thing.

Joan, holding the Faraday pouch containing the phone, took a step closer to her. The room was cold. There were goosebumps on Jamie's crossed arms. Her shoulders slouched toward Joan as she bit her funny lip, and in that moment, Moriarty did not seem so very dangerous. There stood Jamie; Joan’s Jamie. Soft; reachable; improbably, impossibly, in love. It was wrong. Of course it was wrong. There was no time left for softness. In that moment, Moriarty needed to be what she had always been. A weapon; a knife.

_Crooked through and through_.  
  
"I'll negotiate," Jamie said. At least she sounded like herself. Arch. Shameless in her confidence.  
  
"With what leverage?"  
  
"Lionel wants Moriarty. He'll have her. It's all that he's wanted, and it will be enough to secure Sherlock's release."  
  
"Really? And why would he do that? Once he has you, there won't be any reason to let Sherlock go. Lionel will keep him until he gets what he wants from you."  
  
"No. He won't have me until Sherlock's safe and sound, with you.”

"Why would Lionel trust you with that kind of deal?"

"A fair exchange, Watson, in plain view."

"Fair?"

"Or whatever passes for it."

"It would be impossible to oversee that kind of exchange. It's just you and me, Jamie. You and me against Lionel and all of his men. Why, when you're in his sights, would he hesitate to kill the man you love?" Joan paused when she saw Jamie's expression turn wounded. A strange, sympathetic pain hollowed her out, forcing Joan to look away, to breathe in through her teeth. When she could, long seconds later, Joan looked at Jamie again, and saw that her shoulders had straightened and squared. _Good_.

Joan continued, murmuring now, shaken, "It would teach you a lesson, wouldn't it? It's what he would want. To humiliate you as thoroughly as he did in Hong Kong."

The reminder stole what was left of Jamie’s warmth.

"Under normal circumstances,” she said, nodding, taking the pouch from Joan, stepping away, away, “that would be true, of course, but Lionel now needs me to be compliant. He needs a willing participant in his endeavor."

"Getting his hands on the dossiers. Right. But what if he changes his mind? What if he decides that killing you is worth that loss? He doesn’t even know what’s in those documents. He just knows--thinks that he knows--that you have something he wants. Maybe he wonders if he’s on a fool’s errand. I would."

Moriarty’s smile was ice. "Would you? Well, that’s because you’re more clever than he is. You needn’t worry about it, Watson. He wants, as you say, what he _thinks_ I have, and he’ll bargain for it. Lionel has never known when to stop coveting that which isn't his."

"And will you? Will you give him what he wants?"

"No."

"Why not? You'd give yourself over, but not those damned dossiers? You were willing to give them to us to use as a bargaining chip, so what difference does it make? Give them to Lionel. What good are they to you, to me, if you're dead?"

"Oh, Joan, don't you see? It doesn't matter. He'll kill me either way. Once he has what he wants, Moriarty is dead. And before you go on, tell me: Do you think I would trade my life for Sherlock's?"

"No."

Jamie answered with the lift of an eyebrow, and a strained, tight-lipped smile, but she didn't say anything. Joan continued, "Then tell me how you plan to keep it from happening, because from my vantage it seems like you're attempting the impossible."

"It will take weeks for me to explain the ins and outs of those documents; purposefully, it will takes weeks. Perhaps months. In that time, I will devise a way to free myself. A way to kill Lionel."

"You're sure of that?"

"Yes. And, anyhow, what's the alternative?"

What _was_ the alternative? Calling the authorities was out of the question; Jamie had made that clear. And, as much as it pained her, Joan had to agree. Bringing the police into a situation they didn’t understand would only endanger Sherlock’s life. Lionel was using the force of Moriarty’s organization against her. He had manpower, he had weaponry, he had surveillance tech, and funds. Lionel held each and every card. There was no alternative. They would do it Jamie’s way.

“Well,” Joan said, crossing the room, avoiding Jamie’s gaze as it followed her to the edge of the unmade bed, where she sat down with a weariness she knew she had to shake off. There was no time left for weariness. “You wanted to involve Sherlock. And, so here we are.”

“You blame me.”

“I blame myself,” Joan answered, honest. “And you,” she added, after a pause, raising her eyes to meet Jamie’s. “I blame us for putting him where he is now. For risking him. I’ll never forgive myself for that, but I can’t pretend that I would do anything but take that plane to Hong Kong. I would help you again, Jamie. I would let you drag me into hell with you. I only wish it had gone differently, but then how could it, right? This is what we are, and this is how it ends.”

The sudden fire in Jamie’s eyes as she went to Joan, knelt by the bed, grabbed her by the knees... Would Joan remember it, after all was said and done?

(If she remembered anything, it would be that conflagration melting the ice between them, melting Moriarty until she was only Jamie, Jamie gripping Joan’s knees, dropping her head onto Joan’s lap, refuting nothing, only holding, holding on, lifting her head, bringing her hand to the back of Joan’s neck, kissing her, kissing her good-bye. It didn’t last very long. It couldn’t.)

“We should call the police,” Joan said, once they had released one another. Let each other go. “There is one thing they might help with.”

“What’s that?” Jamie’s voice was hoarse. She wouldn’t look at her.

“Clearing Lionel’s men out of your apartment.”


End file.
